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Reader: “Blended Learning” is Out, “Personalized Learning” is In

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2015 //
20

Has the Gates Foundation moved on past the disappointment of creating national standards and national tests to the Next Big Thing: putting all students online?

 

 

This is from a reader:

 

 

 

It seems like “Blended Learning” as a slogan is now unmarketable.

 

On to “Personalized Learning”

 

Perhaps Rocketship is yesterday’s news as well: newest savior model is [San Jose-based] Summit Public Schools

 

Summit was Mark Zuckerberg’s big grant recipient – even before his massive announcement following birth of his first child

 

See: http://summitbasecamp.org/explore-basecamp/

 

Below are the Gates Fdn donations in last 2 years for districts & purchased “research”

 

see RAND/Gates study from last week that is most recent promotional/marketing material here:

 

http://collegeready.gatesfoundation.org/continued-progress-promising-evidence-on-personalized-learning/

 

DISTRICT/CHARTER GRANTS

 

LINDSAY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
Date: October 2015
Purpose: to build the foundation for the California Consortium for Development and Dissemination of Personalized Education (C2D2) by identifying the key questions they plan to address together, build specific deliverables and a strategic plan for future work, and develop a strong operating model for an effective long-term partnership
Amount: $499,860
Term: 5
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Lindsay, California
Grantee Website: http://www.lindsay.k12.ca.us

 

FULTON COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM
Date: November 2014
Purpose: to support districts in the implementation of personalized learning models
Amount: $200,000
Term: 2014
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Grantee Website: http://www.fultonschools.org

 

DENVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION
Date: December 2014
Purpose: to support districts in the implementation of personalized learning models
Amount: $50,000
Term: 13
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Denver, Colorado
Grantee Website: http://www.dpsfoundation.org

Date: May 2014
Purpose: to implement a strategic plan for personalized learning
Amount: $356,485
Term: 8
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Denver, Colorado
Grantee Website: http://www.dpsfoundation.org

 

PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Date: December 2014
Purpose: to support districts in the implementation of personalized learning models
Amount: $50,000
Term: 13
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Portland, Oregon
Grantee Website: http://www.pps.k12.or.us

 

SCHOOL BOARD OF ORANGE COUNTY (FL)
Date: November 2014
Purpose: to support districts in the implementation of personalized learning models
Amount: $200,000
Term: 8
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Orlando, Florida

 

TULSA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Date: September 2014
Purpose: to support organizations to develop innovative professional development systems to create personalized learning systems for teachers; experiment with innovative modes of delivery; and build the capacity at every level of the organization to design learning and direct resources efficiently and effectively.
Amount: $4,421,847
Term: 36
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma
Grantee Website: http://www.tulsaschools.org/

 

PARTNERSHIP FOR LOS ANGELES SCHOOLS
Date: June 2014
Purpose: to support the Partnership for L.A. Schools to pilot new personalized learning approaches in math
Amount: $100,000
Term: 19
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Los Angeles, California
Grantee Website: http://www.partnershipla.org

 

RHODE ISLAND MAYORAL ACADEMIES
Date: June 2014
Purpose: to support personalized learning strategy development
Amount: $200,114
Term: 12
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Providence, Rhode Island
Grantee Website: http://mayoralacademies.org/

 

SCHOOL BOARD OF PINELLAS COUNTY (FL)
Date: April 2014
Purpose: to implement a system-level strategic plan for personalized learning
Amount: $550,000
Term: 15
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Largo, Florida
Grantee Website: https://www.pcsb.org

 

RIVERSIDE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
Date: April 2014
Purpose: to implement a system-level strategic plan for personalized learning
Amount: $550,000
Term: 12
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Riverside, California
Grantee Website: http://www.rusdlink.org

 

HENRY COUNTY (GA) SCHOOLS
Date: April 2014
Purpose: to implement a system-level strategic plan for personalized learning
Amount: $363,000
Term: 9
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: McDonough, Georgia
Grantee Website: http://www.henry.k12.ga.us

 

LAKE COUNTY (FL) SCHOOLS
Date: April 2014
Purpose: to implement a system-level strategic plan for personalized learning
Amount: $450,000
Term: 12
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Tavares, Florida
Grantee Website: http://lake.k12.fl.us/lakeschools

 

DALLAS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT
Date: April 2014
Purpose: to implement a system-level strategic plan for personalized learning
Amount: $841,000
Term: 15
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Dallas, Texas
Grantee Website: http://www.dallasisd.org/

 

PURCHASED RESEARCH

 

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION [CPRE]
Date: August 2015
Purpose: to support a research study focused on learning about the most effective methods to scale personalized learning in districts and regional eco-systems
Amount: $2,790,000
Term: 29
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Seattle, Washington
Grantee Website: http://www.washington.edu/foundation/

 

BELLWEATHER EDUCATION PARTNERS INC.
Date: August 2015
Purpose: to inform the public and education leaders on education policy opportunities related to teaching effectiveness, personalized learning, and new accountability models
Amount: $778,188
Term: 15
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Sudbury, Massachusetts
Grantee Website: http://bellwethereducation.org/

 

THE HIGHLANDER INSTITUTE (RI)
Date: August 2015
Purpose: to develop a statewide system for sharing, implementing, evaluating and scaling blended learning and instructional personalization across the state of Rhode Island
Amount: $349,185
Term: 5
Topic: College-Ready
Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Providence, Rhode Island
Grantee Website: http://highlanderinstitute.org

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Technology, Computers

Laura Chapman on Federal Policy for Technology: A History of False Promises

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2015 //
16

Laura Chapman, regular reader and commenter and expert on the arts, writes:

 

 

1. For people interested in the recent history of US technology policy for education see: “A Retrospective on Twenty Years of Education Technology Policy” (2003) prepared for the US Department of Education (USDE) by American Institutes for Research (Douglas Levin, Project Director). https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/20years.pdf

 

This report shows the role of “blue ribbon reports,” from CEOs of tech and testing companies, McKinsey & Co., the US Chamber of Commerce and other groups in putting technology front and center in K-12 education and teacher education. The push is illustrated by the dates and titles of publications included in this “retrospective” report that begins in 1983 with “A Nation at Risk,” from the National Commission on Excellence in Education. (In the 1960s USDE thought 8mm closed loop videotapes were the hot new technology).

 

2. In one of the first of several USDE technology plans, issued during the tenure of Secretary of Education Rod Paige, we see one of the first claims that proper policies on technology will revolutionize education. Notice the long and grandiose title (caps in the original) “A New Golden Age In American Education HOW THE INTERNET, THE LAW AND TODAY’S STUDENTS ARE REVOLUTIONIZING EXPECTATIONS: National Education Technology Plan 2004.”

 

One of many predictions:

 

“With the benefits of technology, highly trained teachers, a motivated student body and the requirements of No Child Left Behind, the next 10 years could see a spectacular rise in achievement – and may usher in a new golden age for American education.” p. 46. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED484046.pdf

 

3. The follow-on technology plan from USDE, 2010, has the same theme: “Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology: National Education.“ This report calls for “revolutionary transformation rather than evolutionary tinkering.”(p.ix).“ Specifically, the integrated technology-powered learning system should be able to:

 

• “Discover appropriate learning resources;
• Configure the resources with forms of representation and expression that are appropriate for the learner’s age, language, reading ability, and prior knowledge; and
• Select appropriate paths and scaffolds for moving the learner through the learning resources with the ideal level of challenge and support.”

 

Further,
“As part of the validation of this system, we need to examine how much leverage is gained by giving learners control over the pace of their learning and whether certain knowledge domains or competencies require educators to retain that control.

 

We also need to better understand where and when we can substitute learner judgment, online peer interactivity and coaching, and technological advances, such as smart tutors and avatars for the educator-led classroom model. (p. 78).”

 

Part of the marketing pitch for this envisioned learning system, with a minor role (if any) for a human teachers, it a request for federal investment in a national “mission” comparable to that of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA is credited with “the birth of the Internet.”

 

The DARPA-like mission for education?

 

“Identify and validate design principles for efficient and effective online learning systems and combined online and offline learning systems that produce content expertise and competencies equal to or better than those produced by the best conventional instruction in half the time at half the cost (p. 80)

 

In other words, “conventional instruction” is inefficient, ineffective, amateurish, takes too much time, and it costs too much. “Learning systems” can produce more learning, in less time, at lower costs…and with more content “expertise” …and real-time sentiment analyses for a feed back loop to the recommendation system, for personalized praise, or admonishments, or “you can do this” cheerleading consistent with the Dweck theory of mindsets that favor “success.”

 

If this “mission” succeeds, face-to-face encounters with wise and caring human teachers are likely to become a luxury, a frill, a bonus, an enrichment.

 

For the masses, algorithms contrived and organized to function as depersonalized learning systems will do the job of transmitting knowledge, deciding what questions should be presented, what forms the answers may take, and whether particular responses are satisfactory.

 

Orwell smiles, along with Bill Gates and all of the CEOs who have marketed this vision, and cynically advertised such systems as “personalized.”
https://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/netp2010.pdf

 

If you want to see USDE’s latest enthusiasms for technology, go to http://tech.ed.gov/files/2015/04/Developer-Toolkit.pdf and look especially at page 9, a project to change student “mindsets” with the link to USDE funding of this “at scale” project.

Categories Technology, Computers, U.S. Department of Education

Paula Poundstone: Break Your Child’s Addiction to Blinking Screens

By dianeravitch
November 30, 2015 //
25

Paula Poundstone, comedian, has advice for parents: break your children’s addiction to electronic devices.  Is she right or wrong? Who made the decision that all the tests had to be taken online? This leads to a need to teach keyboarding schools in kindergarten or earlier. Shouldn’t children spend time making things, not just consuming what someone else has made? Shouldn’t they have time to use their own imagination, not just imbibe the products of someone else’s imagination?

 

She writes:

 

Screen devices wreak havoc with the brain’s frontal lobe. Diagnosis of ADHD in our children has taken a steep rise since the proliferation of screen devices.

 

Yet, even when presented with that information, parents often won’t hear of protecting their kids from the harmful effects of screen devices. “Kids love them!” they say. Yes, they do, and kids would love heroin if we gave it to them. I’m told that after the initial vomiting stage it can be a hoot!

 

We didn’t know this when we first brought these shiny new toys into homes. But, now, we do know. Still, adults aren’t doing anything about it. Why? Because we’re addicted. Addiction hampers judgment.

 

You see it. Everywhere you look people are staring at their flat things. We’re terrified of being bored. No one drifts or wonders. If Robert Frost had lived today he would have written, “Whose woods are these? I think I’ll Google it.”

 

Screens are tearing away our real connections. Ads for “family cars” show every family member on a different device. Applebees, Chili’s, Olive Garden and some IHOPs are putting tablets on their tables. These restaurants claim they are providing tablets just to make ordering easier. Well, gee, if saying, “May I please have chicken fingers?” is too difficult for our young ones, wouldn’t we want to work on that?

 

The tech industry has profited from the “Every child must have a laptop in the classroom” push, but education hasn’t. Research shows that the brain retains information better read from paper than from a screen, and students who take notes by hand are more successful on tests than those who type their notes on a computer.

 

Yet, art, music, sports, play, healthy meals and green space — things we know help the developing brain — are on the chopping block of school districts’ budgets annually.

 

Even knowing this, at the suggestion that we get screen devices out of our classrooms and away from our children, people gasp, “But they’ll need them for the world of the future!”

 

Our children will need fully-functioning brains for the world of the future. Let’s put that first.

Categories Humor, Technology, Computers

The New Plan for Monetizing Public Education

By dianeravitch
November 21, 2015 //
14

The new frontier for so-called reformers: monetizing public education. That is, making a profit from the classrooms, skimming off money that should go to children, to reducing class size, to the arts.

 

Reader Chiara describes the latest reformer plan:

 

“Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple Inc co-founder Steve Jobs, is the lead investor who funded the buyout of News Corp’s money losing digital education business Amplify earlier this year.
A representative for Powell Jobs’ organization, the Emerson Collective, confirmed the investment in Amplify but would not specify how much of the company Powell Jobs would own or the amount paid for it.
The company’s top management, including its new Chief Executive Larry Berger, picked up a minority position in the Brooklyn-based company as part of the deal.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp said Sept. 30 that it had sold Amplify to a management team backed by a group of private investors for an undisclosed sum. The identity of the investors was not revealed at the time.”

 

So is this something that should be revealed when Jobs new ed org travels the country promoting “transformed” high schools? Is there already a model in mind for US high schools, one that involves extensive use of technology and online learning?

 

This is really cozy, these private sector/public sector relationships:

 

“Ms. Powell Jobs has assembled a team of advisers led by Russlynn H. Ali, who worked in the Obama administration’s Education Department as the assistant secretary for civil rights. Ms. Ali, who for the last several years has overseen education grants at Emerson, will serve as the primary public face of the campaign. Michelle Cahill, who has spent more than three decades in education, including as a senior adviser to Joel I. Klein when he was the New York City schools chancellor, has culled much of the research used on the website. ”

 

How much lobbying of former colleagues goes on between the private sector ed reformers and the public sector ed reformers based on this revolving door? Does this influence have anything to do with the fact that we’re seeing a huge marketing push for online learning among ed reformers in punditry and the government?

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/laurene-powell-jobs-backs-amplify-230518326.html

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, Technology, Computers

Cuomo Has a Vision of Children Taught by Machines

By dianeravitch
November 19, 2015 //
40

Governor Cuomo couldn’t sleep, so he turned on a movie. It was scary. It was about machines talking back to people, machines smarter than people. Then he figured out that machines should teach children. Every child should have his or her own machine. That way, machines that are way smarter than people can teach children.

 

Makes sense? No.

 

Can someone please help Governor Cuomo get a good night’s sleep? What’s troubling him?

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, New York, Technology, Computers

Anthony Cody on the Latest Fad: Competency Based Education

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2015 //
19

Anthony Cody gives us an overview of the past 14 years, in which the common theme is that teachers cannot be trusted to grade or assess their students.

Having survived the onerous and intrusive NCLB and the teacher-bashing of Race to the Top, educators and a growing part of the public realize that it is not the schools that are failing, it is the “reforms” of Bush and Obama.

So with the failure of test-based accountability, the next wave of disruptive innovation is upon us. Led by former Gates executive Tom Vanderbilt Ark, the latest thing is competency based learning and competency based assessment. The idea is even embedded in the President’s “Testing Action Plan.”

Cody writes:

“We have been badgered for the past 14 years by reformers insisting on the fierce urgency of change, and they have had their way – twice! First, seven years of NCLB, followed by the past seven years of Race to the Top, and now the “next generation” of tests, which were promised to be “smarter,” computer-adapted, and deliver results more quickly. None of it worked. Scores on the independent NAEP tests are flat or down. The SBAC and PARCC tests are more difficult without being any “smarter” in telling us about what our students can do. The idea that these tests could somehow promote and measure creativity and critical thinking is debunked. The growing opt out movement poses a huge threat to the standardized testing “measure to manage” paradigm.

“So what is to be done?

“Reinvent the tests once again, using technology. And who better for the job than Tom Vander Ark, formerly of the Gates Foundation, and now associated with a long list of education technology companies. The latest package of solutions is being called “competency based learning,” and it was featured prominently in the Department of Education’s latest “Testing Action Plan.”

So here we go again, but this time with the technology leading the way. This is the breakthrough that equity investors have been waiting for.

Don’t fall for it. Empower teachers, not computers, to assess their students.

Stop the financialization and monetization of public education. Don’t be fooled.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Technology, Computers

Emily Talmage: B.F. Skinner and Competency Based Education

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2015 //
62

Emily Talmage lives in Maine, where she blogs about the latest fads to “reform” American education. In this post, she shows the relationship between the theories of B.F. Skinner, a psychologist who was renowned in his time for his belief in behaviorism, and today’s big new idea: competency based education. In President Obama’s recent “Testing Action Plan,” he endorsed the strategy of competency based education, where every student moves at his or her own pace through programmed instruction on computers. The plan sets aside $25 million to encourage states to try new forms of assessment, including competency-based models. Although this approach is often referred to as individualized, customized, and personalized instruction, it is a direct descendant of B.F. Skinner’s teaching machines. In a previous post, she noted that:

 

A shift to competency-based education has been in the works a least a decade, with the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Gates Foundation, and the Foundation for Excellence in Education (among others) at the helm of this shift.

 

 

Here, she sets the ideas of B.F. Skinner, enunciated in the 1950s, alongside those currently on the website of testing company Questar, whose assessments have been adopted by New York State:

 

Here’s Skinner:

As soon as the student has written his response, he operates the machine, and learns immediately whether he is right or wrong. This is a great improvement over the system in which papers are corrected by a teacher, where the student must wait perhaps until another day, to learn whether or not what he is written is right.

Such immediate knowledge has two principle effects: it leads most rapidly to the formation of correct behavior. The student quickly learns to be right…

 

Now compare the Skinner quote with this description that comes from the website of Questar – the testing company recently adopted by New York State:

With tablets and the right software, this approach is possible on an individualized basis: after every five minutes of individualized tablet-based instruction, students would be presented with a brief series of questions that adapt to their skill level, much as computer-adaptive tests operate today. After that assessment, the next set of instructional material would be customized according to these results.

 

Here’s Skinner again:

Another important advantage is that the student is free to move at his own pace. With techniques in which a whole class is forced to move together, the bright student wastes time, waiting for others to catch up, and the slow student, who may not be inferior in any other respect, is forced to go too fast. …A student who is learning by machine learns at the rate, which is most effective for him. The fast student covers the course in a short time, but the slow student, by giving more time to the subject, can cover the same ground. Both learn the material thoroughly.

 

Now, compare this with Questar:

Because students progress through subject material at their own pace, they can be grouped by ability instead of grade level, similar to competency-based learning approaches currently being tried in various schools and districts.

Questar and Skinner…pretty much indistinguishable, aren’t they?

 

 

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Technology, Computers, Testing

Tim Farley: The Frightening Plans for New York: Competency Based Education, or Embedded Testing

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2015 //
40

Tim Farley is a parent and educator in upstate New York. He is on the board of New York State Allies of Parents and Educators (NYSAPE), which led the historic 2015 opt out movement. When leaders of NYSAPE met with Commissioner MaryEllen Elia in August of this year, she said that the post-Pearson testing would be embedded into instruction. Farley explains what the future holds in store for students in New York and elsewhere.

The Camel’s Nose of Competency Based Education

There is a fable in which an Arab miller reluctantly allows his camel to stick his nose under his tent on a cold night in the desert. This is quickly followed by other parts of his body until the camel is entirely inside the tent and refuses to leave. The moral of the fable is to illustrate that once the “camel” (Governor Cuomo’s $2 billion Smart Bond Act) gets his nose in the tent, his body (competency based education) will soon follow. This is what we have with the Questar testing company, with which the NYSED Commissioner, MaryEllen Elia signed a $44 million contract (http://www.nysed.gov/news/2015/3-8-assessment-contract-awarded-questar-inc). The contract locks into place a five year deal and offers districts the “option to administer the tests on computers”. Isn’t that convenient.

As part of the NYSED press release, Elia is quoted as saying, “Questar, Inc. will also provide computer based TESTING (emphasis added) platforms that will help reduce the need for stand-alone field tests, and more importantly, help make our assessments even better instructional tools.” For the sake of brevity, let’s forget about the fact that the contract with Pearson is still in effect for the 2015-2016 school year and the multi-billion dollar British conglomerate will still be producing the spring 2016 NYS ELA and math tests.

According to Questar’s April 1st publication (sadly, it is not an April fool’s prank), “Reimagining the Classroom Experience” (http://www.questarai.com/reimagining-the-classroom-experience/), Eric Rohy, Questar’s Chief Services Officer, writes, “Most educators agree that the current LECTURE-STYLE (emphasis added) approach to teaching is flawed.” He further writes, “….this approach limits the teacher’s ability to adapt his or her classroom to meet a number of 21st century teaching needs such as INDIVIDUALIZED AND PERSONALIZED INSTRUCTION (emphasis added), personalized learning, competency-based grouping and progression, seamless blending of instruction and assessment, and timely impact of assessment results to affect instruction.” WOW! When was the last time Eric Rohy visited an American classroom, the 1950’s? Teachers do not use “lecture style” anymore, nor have they in several decades.

What does Mr. Rohy mean by “individualized and personalized instruction”? He writes about a four-part implementation. First, eliminate the lecture-style (“one-to-many teaching approach”) by “giving every student a TABLET DEVICE (think iPad) that WIRELESSLY CONNECTS to ADAPTIVE SOFTWARE in the cloud…. instruction tailored to their individual learning styles and capability levels; and LEARNING MODULES (emphasis added) presented just to them.” Rohy continues, “Seamlessly integrate assessment with the instruction presented to each student on his or her TABLET (emphasis added). Again, Rohy makes a false generalization of our teachers by writing, “…most teachers do not teach this way (checking for understanding on an ongoing basis throughout a lesson) for two reasons: pedagogical momentum and a lack of technology that integrates instruction and ASSESSMENT (emphasis added) seamlessly so it doesn’t disrupt the flow of the class. With TABLETS (emphasis added) and the RIGHT SOFTWARE (emphasis added), this approach is possible on an INDIVIDUALIZED basis: after every five minutes of INDIVIDUALIZED TABLET-BASED INSTRUCTION (emphasis added), students would be presented with a brief series of questions that adapt to their skill level…” He continues, “The student would then be reassessed and the cycle would continue. With both the instruction and the assessments integrated into the same software and presented as a continuous ‘flow’ to each student, there is almost NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT (emphasis added) in the mind of a child.”

Mr. Rohy also posits that grade levels could be ELIMINATED, “because students progress through subject material at their own pace…” He ends the publication with, “It would be naive to think that such a holistic change to classroom structure and pedagogy would be easy. A number of SIGNIFICANT FUNDING (i.e. – $2 billion Smart Bond Act), process, training, and political challenges would need to be addressed. He ends with a paraphrased quote of Apple CEO Tim Cook – “we must be ‘willing to lose sight of the shore’ and make UNCOMFORTABLE changes to make a significant leap forward in education.”

The “reformers” of education want to replace “teacher” with “individualized instruction” and/or “tablet”. They believe that quality teachers can be seamlessly replaced by a tablet, some headphones, and some wifi. Let me show you a picture of what that means:

Image from http://www.projectlisten.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Edgeworth_5_01_1st_g-300×225.jpg.

The Smart Schools Bond Act (http://www.p12.nysed.gov/mgtserv/smart_schools/docs/Smart_Schools_Bond_Act_Guidance_04.27.15_Final.pdf) is the camel’s nose, the rest of the camel is represented by Questar’s CBT program, Commissioner Elia and Governor Cuomo represent the Arab miller, and the tent is a metaphor for our public schools.

Would Bill Gates, President Obama, current US DOE Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, soon-to-be US Secretary John King, and Andrew Cuomo subject their own children to this education environment? No, nor should they and nor should we. I do not want my children to be connected to a tablet all day in the name of “individualized instruction.” I want a high quality teacher to teach my children.

If Commissioner Elia believes that the opt out movement will become a moot point due to competency based education and assessments, she had better re-think her belief. Opt out numbers are likely to hit 500,000 this spring. When the 2016-2017 school year begins, opt outs will be close to 1,000,000.

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, Technology, Computers, Testing

David Greene: Teachers or Technology?

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2015 //
66

Teacher and teacher trainer David Greene tells a true story about a teacher in an unnamed district.

Read it and see what you think.

“Derrick’s Story”

The other night I had dinner with a couple I’ve known for a long time. Let’s just say that one of these people is not named “Derrick,” but that’s the name I will use. It will be easy to understand why as I tell this story. The facts are correct, but I will not identify him nor identify the school so that I don’t put Derrick in a bad spot.

Derrick is a retired high school teacher who was recently hired as a substitute in an upper-middle class suburban high school whose population is 80 percent white with less than ten percent of students considered to be economically disadvantaged. Approximately 70 percent of students take AP courses. Almost all meet ELA and math proficiency standards.

It is a town similar to several NYC suburban towns. The estimated median household income was about $90,000, which is $30,000 higher than the New York state median. More than half of the town’s population has at least a bachelor’s degree, while more than a quarter has a graduate or professional degree.

In short, this is not your average high school in your average suburban town.

Derrick started by saying he has been learning a great deal of new technology while on this job. Great, I thought, but then he went on.

His story soon morphed into a version of “The Walking Dead” or a parallel of the story of Clarisse McClellan, an unorthodox teacher, in the film and stage version of “Fahrenheit 451” — fired for not believing in Ray Bradbury’s fictional, high tech, book-burning, future society she lives in.

Derrick began to describe how he had to learn the Smart Board, specific tablet apps, Infinite Campus, and Pearson-created, computer-directed curricula for his courses. He was forced to implement a rigid, computer-directed classroom where all students worked in groups, listened to a Kahn Academy-like lecture, followed computer-programmed procedures outlined on the Smart Board, and did assignments on their tablets. Lesson plans were only to be followed, not created, and rigidly broke the period down into timed sections.

Derrick was told not to use the Socratic Method or any kind of class participation where he did anything more than monitor student progress on their work. He became a glorified babysitter. A cog in a machine. An automaton.

A technician, rather than a teacher.

Coincidentally, the next morning I read a New York Times piece related to this issue. Entitled, Lecture Me. Really., it told the tale of a college American history prof who inspected her new classroom and was pleased to see all the new technology there, but was surprised that there was no lectern for her to place her notes. She managed to get one after weeks of telephoning and emailing.

Although she defended lecturing in her piece, of which I am not a fan, the tale is still important to this discussion.

The point is that even if this room was used for a student-centered Socratic classroom, the emphasis was solely on the non-human technology. We need to combine active learning (which can easily be done via low or high tech tools) and the kinds of teaching tools that allow students to “keep students’ minds in energetic and simultaneous action and… a rare skill in our smartphone-app-addled culture: the art of attention, the crucial first step in the “critical thinking” that educational theorists prize.

To quote the author, Molly Worthen, “Technology can be a saboteur. Studies suggest that taking notes by hand helps students master material better than typing notes on a laptop, probably because most find it impossible to take verbatim notes with pen and paper. Verbatim transcription is never the goal: Students should synthesize as they listen.”

Derrick’s story, on its own, is scary indeed, but we also know that this is happening all across the country where school districts, even relatively wealthy ones such as his, are buying into the high tech trend regardless of what it does to the quality of teaching and learning.

All districts want to upgrade their technology, so when giants like Pearson, Apple, or Microsoft tell them they will install everything and provide all students with tablets, many jump at the chance to sell their souls to the devil. The devil corporations or foundations give districts the hardware and software, but they are locked in to using their curricula and lesson plans.

The result? Instead of technology creating great teaching tools for teachers, teachers become the tools of technology!

Categories Teachers and Teaching, Technology, Computers

New York: Cuomo’s Chief Education Advisor Has Conflicts of Interest

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2015 //
20

Richard Parsons, chair of Governor Cuomo’s Common Core Commission, works for a firm that invests in education technology and has contracts with the state, according to the Long Island Business News.

“One of the governor’s chief education advisers is employed by a firm that does millions of dollars of business with the state’s schools, although that has not been disclosed to the public.
“Richard Parsons, the leader of an earlier state education commission that recommended heavy investment in technology and head of a new education task force, works for a company whose principal holdings include an education technology firm that does a substantial business with the state.
“Parsons, the former chairman of Citigroup and CEO and chairman of Time Warner, was recently named the head of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s task force on the Common Core.
“Since 2009 he has been a senior adviser at Providence Equity Partners – whose principal holdings include numerous education technology firms. The state disclosed his position there, but did not indicate that Providence had any involvement in education technology firms.
“That definitely should have been disclosed,” said one education official who asked not to be identified. “I knew him from Time Warner….

“Providence owns Blackboard, a high-tech education firms whose roots go back to a consulting firm founded in 1997 to work with non-profit IMS Global Learning Consortium and merged with CourseInfo the following year.
“Venture capital firms and venture capital arms of companies such as Pearson, Dell, AOL, The Carlyle Group and Novak Biddle Venture Partners all took stakes in Blackboard, which went public in 2004.
“Investors led by Providence Equity Partners later bought Blackboard for $1.64 billion, taking the firm private. Blackboard remains one of Providence’s key holdings with contracts around the country, including New York State.
“Blackboard in December of 2011 obtained a $6.8 million contract for the State University of New York system, according to state records, in 2012 obtained another $1 million contract and in 2014 obtained a $7.5 million contract.
The company also obtained a $5.9 million contract with the City University of New York in 2012, followed by an additional $1 million contract over the next two years.
“Blackboard has been building its New York business, even as Parsons has risen to a high rank among the state’s education advisers.

“Allison Breidbart White, a critic of the Common Core and of the task force Gov. Andrew Cuomo created, said there is “no doubt, lots of conflict of interest on that panel, not just with Parsons.”
“He also served as the head of the governor’s 2012 committee to reform education that recommended heavily investing in technology.
“The state indicates that the New York Education Reform Commission that Parsons led “played an instrumental role in developing a blueprint to improve the quality of education for all students through its final report in January 2014.”
“The New York Education Reform Commission under Parsons focused heavily on the benefits of and need to spend heavily on rolling out more technology.
Read more: http://libn.com/2015/10/27/gov-chief-ed-advisers-firm-major-supplier-to-state-ed/#ixzz3poDyxYv1

Categories Common Core, Cuomo, Andrew, Education Reform, Technology, Computers
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