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Chan-Zuckerberg Put Their Money on Depersonalized Learning

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2017 //
50

Boy wonder Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan are placing their bets on technology to teach children better than humans.

https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/6/6/chan-zuckerbergs-personalized-learning-grants

What is ironic about this is that Dr. Chan has often told interviewers that two teachers “changed her life.”

Do you think anyone will ever remember with gratitude the nameless, faceless monitor that changed their life?

Please join me in my personal crusade to refer to machine instruction as Depersonalized Learning. The tech billionaires not only want our money, they want to steal the integrity of language.

NO! Resist!

Categories Billionaires, Teaching, Technology

Audrey Watters: Education Technology as “The New Normal”

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2017 //
25

Audrey Watters blogs about technology. This post was recommended by a reader.

This is a speech posted on her blog that she delivered at an ed-tech conference in Mexico.

Here is a brief excerpt:

“When I hear the phrase “the new normal,” I cannot help but think of the ways in which those same words were used in the US to describe the economy during and since the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and subsequent global recession. A period of slow economic growth, limited job creation, and stagnant incomes. A period of economic instability for most of us, and one of growing economic inequality globally as the super wealthy got super wealthier.

“That period was also one of enormous growth in new digital technology companies. Facebook and Twitter grew in popularity as social networks emerged to profoundly reconfigure information and media. Netflix moved from DVDs to a streaming service to a media company in its own right. Amazon introduced “The Cloud.” Apple introduced the iPhone, and “apps” became ubiquitous, leading some to pronounce the World Wide Web – a scholarly endeavor at its origin, let’s not forget – was dead. Venture capitalists became exuberant once again about investing in high tech startups, even those in education, which had for the previous decade been seen as a difficult and unprofitable market. Another Dot Com boom was predicted, this one centered on personal data.

“But the growth of Silicon Valley didn’t really do much to improve the economic well-being of most of us. It didn’t really create jobs, although it did create wealth for a handful of investors and entrepreneurs. It did help further a narrative that our economic precarity was not only “the new normal” but potentially liberatory. The “freelance” economy, we were told, meant we didn’t have to have full-time employment any longer. Just “gigs.” The anti-regulatory practices and libertarian ideology espoused by the CEO of Uber became a model for talking about this “new economy”…

“This “new normal” does not simply argue that governmental regulations impede innovation. It posits government itself as an obstacle to change. It embraces libertarianism; it embraces “free markets.” It embraces a neoliberalism that calls for shrinking budgets for public services, including education – a shifting of dollars to private industry.
Education needs to change, we have long been told. It is outmoded. Inefficient. And this “new normal” – in an economic sense much more than a pedagogical one – has meant schools have been tasked to “do more with less” and specifically to do more with new technologies which promise greater efficiency, carrying with them the values of business and markets rather than the values of democracy or democratic education.

“These new technologies, oriented towards consumers and consumption, privilege an ideology of individualism. In education technology, as in advertising, this is labeled “personalization.” The flaw of traditional education systems, we are told, is that they focus too much on the group, the class, the collective. So we see education being reframed as a technologically-enhanced series of choices – consumer choices. Technologies monitor and extract data in order to maximize “engagement” and entertainment.

“I fear that new normal, what it might really mean for teaching, for learning, for scholarship.”

Categories Technology

NY Times: The Tech Billionaires Who Are Remaking America’s Schools

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2017 //
37

This is an important article about the Silicon Valley billionaires who want to remake America’s schools, although none has any deep knowledge of children or cognition or the multiple social issues that affect children and families. Being tech entrepreneurs, most of them think there is a technological fix for every problem.

The article focuses on several billionaires and what they aim to achieve.

The writer, Natasha Singer, is careful to add red flags where necessary and seek out evaluations. She also is alert to the possibility that the tech entrepreneurs are building their portfolios and enriching themselves. And she points out that much of what they are doing challenges democracy itself in the absence of public debate and understanding.

She writes:

“In the space of just a few years, technology giants have begun remaking the very nature of schooling on a vast scale, using some of the same techniques that have made their companies linchpins of the American economy. Through their philanthropy, they are influencing the subjects that schools teach, the classroom tools that teachers choose and fundamental approaches to learning….

“The involvement by some of the wealthiest and most influential titans of the 21st century amounts to a singular experiment in education, with millions of students serving as de facto beta testers for their ideas. Some tech leaders believe that applying an engineering mind-set can improve just about any system, and that their business acumen qualifies them to rethink American education…

“Tech companies and their founders have been rolling out programs in America’s public schools with relatively few checks and balances, The New York Times found in interviews with more than 100 company executives, government officials, school administrators, researchers, teachers, parents and students.

“They have the power to change policy, but no corresponding check on that power,” said Megan Tompkins-Stange, an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “It does subvert the democratic process.”

Furthermore, there is only limited research into whether the tech giants’ programs have actually improved students’ educational results….

“Mr. Hastings of Netflix and other tech executives rejected the idea that they wielded significant influence in education. The mere fact that classroom internet access has improved, Mr. Hastings said, has had a much greater impact in schools than anything tech philanthropists have done.”

Hastings’ Dreambox software depends on constant data-mining:

“DreamBox Learning tracks a student’s every click, correct answer, hesitation and error — collecting about 50,000 data points per student per hour — and uses those details to adjust the math lessons it shows. And it uses data to help teachers pinpoint which math concepts students may be struggling with.”

This is the same Reed Hastings who just spent $5 million helping charter entrepreneurs gain control of the Los Angeles school board.

“Another difference: Some tech moguls are taking a hands-on role in nearly every step of the education supply chain by financing campaigns to alter policy, building learning apps to advance their aims and subsidizing teacher training. This end-to-end influence represents an “almost monopolistic approach to education reform,” said Larry Cuban, an emeritus professor of education at Stanford University. “That is starkly different to earlier generations of philanthropists.”

“These efforts coincide with a larger Silicon Valley push to sell computers and software to American schools, a lucrative market projected to reach $21 billion by 2020. Already, more than half of the primary- and secondary-school students in the United States use Google services like Gmail in school.”

Singer goes through each of the entrepreneurs’ programs. The only one that impressed me was the program in San Francisco that created a Pricipals’ Innovation Fund, “which awards annual unrestricted grants of $100,000 to the principal at each of the district’s 21 middle and K-8 schools.” The key word here is unrestricted.

Mark Zuckerberg’s dream is to sell his digitized approach to enable children to learn via computer and use teachers as moderators. He calls this “personalized learning,” since the computer algorithm adjusts for each student. Singer’s subtitle for Zuckerberg’s dream is: “Student, Teach Thyself.”

““Our hope over the next decade is to help upgrade a majority of these schools to personalized learning and then start working globally as well,” Mr. Zuckerberg told the audience. “Giving a billion students a personalized education is a great thing to do.”

Please, Natasha Singer, do a follow-up that explains that learning from a machine is depersonalized learning.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Data and Data Mining, Democracy, Education Reform, For-Profit, Online Learning, Privacy and Privacy Rights, Technology

Tom Ultican’s Sharp Critique of What Went Wrong and How to Make Things Right

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2017 //
19

Tom Ultican became a teacher of math and physics in San Diego after a career in Silicon Valley. He is retiring. He loves teaching.

He describes with precision the people who imposed bad ideas on the schools and messed them up. Maybe they meant well but their lack of knowledge or experience in the classroom led to naive and foolish and failed interventions, like Common Core and “turnaround,” with mad firings.

He writes:

“Standards based education is bad education theory. In the 1960’s Benjamin Bloom proposed mastery education in which instruction would be individualized and students would master certain skills before they moved ahead. By the 1970’s this idea had been married with B.F. Skinner’s behaviorist philosophy and teachers were given lists of discrete items for their students to master. The “reform” became derisively known as “seats and sheets.””

Tom says he is leaving the classroom. I hope there is a way to keep his kbowledge, experience, and wisdom engaged in educating the next generation.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Competency Based Education, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, NCLB, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, San Diego, Technology, Turnaround Schools

Jeb Bush Blasts Teachers’ Unions at School Choice Meeting in Indianapolis

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2017 //
28

Jeb Bush was honored by Betsy DeVos’ organization, the American Federation for Children, at their meeting in Indianapolis. Bush’s Foundation for Educational Ecellence is heavily funded by the technology and Bush loves to attack the schools that don’t adopt technology faster.

On this occasion, he blamed teachers’ unions for standing in the way of the electronic future. He says they care only for adult interests, which explains why they take a low-paying job with difficult working conditions.

Bush, who is funded by billionaire foundations and tech industries, finds it easy to use teachers and their unions as his punching bag and scapegoat.

He did not acknowledge that the nation’s highest scoring states on NAEP–Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut–have strong teachers’ unions, while the state’s that ban unions are the lowest performing.

Categories Bush, Jeb, School Choice, Technology, Unions

Benjamin Herold Reviews Evaluations of “Personalized Learning”

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2017 //
33

Larry Cuban posted this article by Benjamin Herold, who writes for Education Week about technology, on his blog.

https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2017/05/21/personalized-learning-what-does-the-research-say-benjamin-herold/

The term “personalized learning” has been captured by the technology industry to represent computer-based instruction. Some people think it would be justifiable to refer to computer-based instruction as “depersonalized learning” since a computer is a machine and not a person.

The other terms the tech industry has used for marketing purposes are “individualized” and “customized.”

Herold’s review is balanced and appropriately critical, distinguishing between independent research and marketing.

The studies seem to use test scores as the best indicator of success. These scores may gauge of whether sutudents learned what the computer taught them, but says nothing about whether they could pass a test of similar material that the machine didn’t teach them.

And that’s without going into what should be the lasting effects of education: the ability to think independently, to ask questions, to think outside the box, to accomplish tasks for intrinsic purposes, rather than to win a prize.

Many educators think that the goal of computer-based instruction is to develop classrooms without teachers; a paraprofessional could be available to answer questions about the technology. Is that where the tech industry is headed? Consider this recent article in Bloomberg News which hailed the development of ships without sailors. “Doing away with sailors will make the high seas safer and cleaner.”

It sounds like a ghost story: A huge cargo vessel sails up and down the Norwegian coast, silently going about its business, without a captain or crew in sight. But if all goes as planned, it’s actually the future of shipping.

96% of all marine casualties are caused by human error. Solution: get rid of the humans. Problem solved.

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, Technology

Massive Data Breach Announced by New York State Education Department

By dianeravitch
May 21, 2017 //
18

The New York State Education Department sent out the following notice to all principals in the state:

The Department has learned that Edmodo, Inc., a learning platform used by many schools and districts across the State, has suffered a security incident that potentially affects the accounts of Edmodo users. Edmodo’s platform was hacked and the user names, email addresses, and hashed passwords of about millions of account users were acquired by an unknown, unauthorized third party.

The Department is using this communication to ask districts to instruct their Edmodo users to reset their passwords immediately, and to warn them to be vigilant about phishing attacks that may result from this incident. Users who use the same password on multiple sites should be encouraged to change them on those sites as well. To reset a password on the Edmodo platform, users should: 1. Go to the Edmodo website and log in to your account. 2. Click on the “Password Reset” link in the notice at the top of the page. 3. Enter their current password, and then create a new password. Questions about resetting passwords should be directed to the Support Help Center on the Edmodo website.

Please remember that any unauthorized access to a student’s personally identifiable information should be reported to SED’s Chief Privacy Officer at Privacy@NYSED.gov.

Presumably someone will find a fix and patch whatever went wrong.

Given the constant hacking these days, we can safely assume that someone will hack into the system again. And again. And again.

The massive hack by a group who call themselves “The Shadow Brokers” disrupted computers all over the world, locked them up, and unlocked them for ransom money.

Nothing online is secure.

It is time to start thinking seriously about solutions to the invasion of privacy. Better security is one solution, but for every new lock, there is a better lock-picker. Think about it.

Categories New York, Privacy and Privacy Rights, Technology

Brave New World: What Links Trump, Brexit, Robert Mercer, Rupert Murdoch, and Steve Bannon?

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2017 //
28

This is an article in The Guardian that I will not attempt to summarize. What I will Di is urge you to read it. It is about money, power, and a coordinated attack on democracy. It is about data mining psychological warfare financed by a billionaire and used to win elections. It is about the use of technology to subvert democracy and empower a new, far-right elite.

Categories Data and Data Mining, Democracy, Technology

Georgia: Governor Deal Vetoes Legislation to Allow Opt Out from Testing

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2017 //
29

Rightwing corporate reformers like to go on and on about parental choice. Choice. Choice. Choice. The one choice they will not tolerate is parents who want their children to refuse the state tests. No choice! Governor Nathan Deal of Georgia vetoed a bill that would make it easier to parents to opt their children out of state standardized tests. He also blocked the possibility of students taking the tests using paper and pencil, instead of a computer. Deal was immediately hailed by Jeb Bush, who pushes computerization and digitization whenever possible. Jeb is a big support of school choice if it means vouchers and charters. He opposes parents’ right to opt out of testing. He is also a major supporter of computer-based instruction and computer-based assessment. His “Foundation for Educational Excellence” is largely funded by the software corporations that profit from standardized testing and data mining online. It has long been a goal of the corporate reform industry to use tests to “prove” that public schools are failing, that there is an “achievement gap,” and that parents should pull their children out of public schools and send them to charter schools or demand vouchers. Once that happens, the test scores don’t count anymore, because neither charters nor vouchers raise test scores or close achievement gaps. It is all a massive hoax to promote privatization.

This article appeared in Politico Pro. I am not a s

By Aubree Eliza Weaver
05/09/2017 01:52 PM EDT

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal today vetoed a bill that would have made it easier for students to opt out of taking standardized tests.

House Bill 425 included provisions discouraging disciplinary action against those students who do not participate in federal, state or locally mandated standardized assessments. Additionally, it would have allowed students to complete the exams using paper and pencil, instead of a computer.

“First, as I stated in my veto of SB 133 last year, local school districts currently have the flexibility to determine opt-out procedures for students who cannot, or choose not to, take these statewide assessments and I see no need to impose an addition layer of state-level procedures for these students,” Deal said in a statement.

He also said that reverting to paper-and-pencil exams would make it harder for the state to return test data to districts quickly and goes against the state’s priority of reducing opportunities for students to cheat.

Deal’s decision was lauded by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

“The proposal would have harmed students and teachers by denying access to measurements that track progress on standardized assessments,” the advocacy group, founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said in a statement. “Maintaining a transparent and accountable measurement systems is critical to ensuring students are on track to succeed in college and beyond — and indicates how successful schools are in preparing students for the future.”

To view online:
https://www.politicopro.com/education/whiteboard/2017/05/georgia-governor-vetoes-opt-out-measure-087474

This article appeared in Politico Pro. I am not a subscriber because it costs $3,500 a year, the last time I checked. Too rich for my taste.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Data and Data Mining, Education Industry, Georgia, Hoax, Opt Out, Parents, Privatization, Standardized Testing, Technology, Testing

Laura Chapman: Computer-Based Education as a Depersonalized and Profitable Industry

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2017 //
23

Laura Chapman writes here about “computer-based education” and who profits from it.

“Frankly, the scariest for-profit ventures are the tech companies that hope to replace teachers and schools with their “scalable” models.” Diane Ravitch.

Yes. Computer-based Education (CBE) is being marketed as personalized when it is exactly the opposite. Legislators in Ohio and elsewhere are counting on CBE to produce a radical reduction in brick and mortar schools and the need for educators who have college degrees and professional credentials.

CBE is part of the reason that we states are trying to install student-based budgets as the norm for schools and districts. Accountants are dissecting a district’s budget so costs can be allocated to specific schools, then to courses and grade levels in the school, including each teacher’s salary with benefit package, and the estimated cost of educating an individual student to a specific standard of mastery, given the student’s SES characteristics and the like. These estimates would take into account local revenues, the value of federal and state funds (usually less than 12% each), and so forth. The aim is to lay claim to CBE as the “best bang for the buck” while pointing to a system that “objectively” monitors student mastery of pre-determined content (delivered by computers).

Here are two maps that show the rapid uptake of CBE as if it is the new panacea for education. Look beyond the maps for excellent research on how CBE is being marketed.

Hoping to escape Competency-Based Education? Looks like Wyoming is your only option.

Here you will find amazing and disturbing stats and graphic illustrations of some interlocking initiatives, all designed to have a rapid and “collective impact” on the educational landscape. https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2017/05/02/knowledgeworks-the-every-student-succeeds-act-essa-and-the-push-for-competency-based-learning/

The Gates Foundation is investing in a program that would train adults to serve as “providers” of CBE, therby eliminating the need for state certification to teach. In fact the whole CBE movement is aimed at “deschooling” education. That requires demonizing place-based brick and mortar schools and grade-by-grade instruction as part of the antiquated lock-step factory model.

The International Association for K–12 Online Learning (iNACOL) aims to expand access to online formats for learning, with mobile phone access for some programs. See especially their publications calling for “innovation zones” that would provide for “competency-based, personalized learning” free of brick and mortar schools.

“Policy makers establish innovation zone authority or programs through legislation or rule-making to catalyze the development of new learning models. The innovation zone authority provides increased flexibility for a state to waive certain regulations and requirements for schools and systems beginning to plan, design and implement personalized, competency-based education models. Innovation zones offer state education policy waivers in order to support practitioners in the process of developing and implementing new learning models. As practitioners implement their models, any rules or regulations that impede the model development are brought to light and can be addressed through waivers in a state, which has provided such innovation zones. This shifts the role of the state agency from one of compliance enforcement to support in enabling new model development to occur in districts.”

iNACOL lists the states with favorable legislation: Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, Mississippi, and New York. INACOL is supported by the The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, and The Walton Family Foundation. http://www.inacol.org/resource/innovation-zones-creating-policy-flexibility-for-personalized-learning/

The work of iNACOL is closely connected with the National Repository of Online Content (NROC). NROC Project is a non-profit network focused on “college & career readiness.” It is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, and NROC institutional members. Members provide multi-media content and applications to websites like HippoCampus (six sources of online content in Math, Science, Social Studies, English and Religion) and EdReady (math to prepare for commonly used placement exams, such as AccuPlacer, Compass, SAT, and ACT). Membership in NROC keeps costs low for institutions, and free for individuals. NROC operates under the umbrella of The Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE), a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation founded in 2003. MITE is staffed by three people. Taken as a group, they have worked for McGraw-Hill Education, CTB/McGraw-Hill, Harcourt Brace, in addition to having experience in corporate training, media, and financial management. MITE has received $16.2 million from the Gates foundation.

Although it is wise to keep attention focussed on the damage to public education being done by charter schools, vouchers, and the standardized testing requirements in ESSA, I think the larger threat to public education is CBE. Venture capitalists are investing in educational management systems and apps galore. KnowledgeWorks.org markets CBE as teacher-free, learner-centered education organized by playlists of “opportunities for learning” with for-hire “sherpas” to guide students on “learning journeys.”

So far, there is very little discussion of the Trump/Republican roll-back of privacy regulations that once applied to internet service providers. There is little discussion of the prospect that this administration may eliminate the principle of net-neutrality in delivering content. The former means that student privacy (already thin and fragile as a moth’s wing in school contracts) is open to confabulation by personal/parental choices of products and services. The latter means that the speed and cost of internet services, including the e-rate program for schools, may become strictly market-based–supported by ads or other pay-to-play schemes.

CBE promoters see education organized in an ecological landscape with informal learning centers (for working parents), abundant on-line resources; opportunities for learning via community organizations such as art museums, libraries, parks, zoos, courts; and local businesses/workplaces.

Each of these providers of education would offer a badge or credential symbolic of learning. The badges or credentials are “stackable” so students who may verify their competencies as needed in seeking a job or advanced education. There is not much talk about the actual costs of CBE, the shelf life of hardware, the quality of on-line instructional materials, and unlimited possibilities for commercial exploitation of children and their parents. Choice through vouchers and CBE are perfect partners for creating the illusion that all children can and will have access to the best education in the world and completely personalized.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Industry, For-Profit, Technology
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