Some Schools are on the Road to Irrelevance.....FORTUNATELY we are not ONE of THEM!

Schools banning iPods to beat cheaters


By REBECCA BOONE, Associated Press WriterSun Apr 29, 2:50 PM ET

Banning baseball caps during tests was obvious — students were writing the answers under the brim. Then, schools started banning cell phones, realizing students could text message the answers to each other.

Now, schools across the country are targeting digital media players as a potential cheating device. Devices including Apple Inc. iPods and Microsoft Corp. Zunes can be hidden under clothing, with just an earbud and a wire snaking behind an ear and into a shirt collar to give them away, school officials say.

"It doesn't take long to get out of the loop with teenagers," said Mountain View High School Principal Aaron Maybon. "They come up with new and creative ways to cheat pretty fast."

Mountain View recently enacted a ban on digital media players after school officials realized some students were downloading formulas and other material onto the players.

"A teacher overheard a couple of kids talking about it," said Maybon.

Shana Kemp, spokeswoman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said she does not have hard statistics on the phenomenon but said it is not unusual for schools to ban digital media players.

"I think it is becoming a national trend," she said. "We hope that each district will have a policy in place for technology — it keeps a lot of the problems down."

Using the devices to cheat is hardly a new phenomenon, Kemp said. However, sometimes it takes awhile for teachers and administrators, who come from an older generation, to catch on to the various ways the technology can be used.

Some students use iPod-compatible voice recorders to record test answers in advance and them play them back, said 16-year-old Mountain View junior Damir Bazdar.

Others download crib notes onto the music players and hide them in the "lyrics" text files. Even an audio clip of the old "Schoolhouse Rock" take on how a bill makes it through Congress can come in handy during some American government exams.

Kelsey Nelson, a 17-year-old senior at the school, said she used to listen to music after completing her tests — something she can no longer do since the ban. Still, she said, the ban has not stopped some students from using the devices.

"You can just thread the earbud up your sleeve and then hold it to your ear like you're resting your head on your hand," Nelson said. "I think you should still be able to use iPods. People who are going to cheat are still going to cheat, with or without them."

Still, schools around the world are hoping bans will at least stave off some cheaters.

Henry Jones, a teacher at San Gabriel High School in San Gabriel, Calif., confiscated a student's iPod during a class and found the answers to a test, crib notes and a definition list hidden among the teen's music selections. Schools in Seattle, Wash., have also banned the devices.

The practice is not limited to the United States: St. Mary's College, a high school in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, banned cell phones and digital medial players this year, while the University of Tasmania in Australia prohibits iPods, electronic dictionaries, CD players and spell-checking devices.

Conversely, Duke University in North Carolina began providing iPods to its students three years ago as part of an experiment to see how the devices could be used to enhance learning.

The music players proved to be invaluable for some courses, including music, engineering and sociology classes, said Tim Dodd, executive director of The Center for Academic Integrity at Duke. At Duke, incidents of cheating have declined over the past 10 years, largely because the community expects its students to have academic integrity, he said.

"Trying to fight the technology without a dialogue on values and expectations is a losing battle," Dodd said. "I think there's kind of a backdoor benefit here. As teachers are thinking about how technology has corrupted, they're also thinking about ways it can be used productively."

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On the Net:

National Association of Secondary School Principals: http://www.principals.org

Center for Academic Integrity: http://www.academicintegrity.org/

21st Century Digital Learning Environments.....Unintended Consequences...and Inconvenient Truths!

How'd You Do In School Today?

With Edline Online, The Report Card Goes 24/7 and Every Test Is An Open Book

By Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 30, 2007; C01

At the beginning of this semester, Laura Iriarte Miguel switched anatomy classes.

No big deal. Students at Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg can shift courses around at the start of each term. But when Iriarte Miguel remained on the roll in the wrong class for several days, her parents began receiving notices from Edline -- an online, up-to-the-sec grade-tracking program used in Montgomery County middle and high schools -- about her unexcused absences and zeros on quizzes.

Finally, one night at dinner, in between bites of spaghetti, her parents grilled her about her truancy and her rotten anatomy grades. She hadn't told them she had opted into another class.

"They wanted to know why-why-why-why," Iriarte Miguel says. She set them straight, but the air was still poisoned. The suspicion, she says, "accumulated in the back of their minds during the whole day."

This could be a simple story of parental expectations and teenage lackadaisicalness. But it's also a tale of an innovation at the nexus of a morphing world -- symbolic of the changing nature of childhood, America's abiding faith in education and the unforgiving quality of technology.

* * *

Growing up isn't what it used to be. Time was, parents set boundaries, children tested them. There was always a question of how much parents should know and how much kids should tell them. School was often a black box to parents. Mom and Dad dropped their kids off in the morning and had nearly zero understanding of precisely what went on during the day.

High school in particular has been a time of experimentation, says Ellen deLara, an adolescence specialist at Syracuse University. "People are inventing themselves, trying out different ways of being in the world, trying different faces."

Now along comes Edline to help erase the illusion -- and reality -- that school is separate from the parental world. That separation, deLara says, "is a buffer that's actually critical for healthy adolescent development."

Constant monitoring -- the equivalent of a nanny cam trained on teenagers -- "doesn't allow for confabulation," she adds. Nor does it provide "space for thinking about how to present bad news to parents. Instead, parents can jump to conclusions, and essentially, try and convict their teens, all before hearing from them."

The result is double-edged: Edline -- and other programs like it, such as SchoolFusion and School Center -- provide students, teachers and parents with an online meeting place to discuss day-to-day assignments, tests and grades. But it also enables parents to keep track of a kid's academic progress -- or lack of progress -- in a heretofore unthinkably micromanagerial way. Parents can know everything; children have no wiggle room. Gone is the fudge factor, the white lie. A student makes a D on a quiz, a D shows up on Edline. No matter that a student leads a discussion in class or puts forth a cogent point. Or has the possibility to retake the quiz, make up the poor grade or do extra credit work over the weekend.

This swift knowledge of success or failure can drive a wedge into families.

Exhibit A: More than 20 anti-Edline groups have popped up on Facebook with names such as "Edline Is Hazardous to My Health" and "Edline Is Ruining My Life." These two groups, it turns out, were founded by Montgomery County high school students.

So was the largest of the anti-Edline clubs: "Child abuse increased 78% since the Edline was created." With more than 6,000 members, the online klatch is Iriarte Miguel's co-creation. She says that when she and a guy launched it she was being tongue-in-cheek. But there is a real sting.

"Edline really doesn't give us an opportunity to explain why our grades aren't up to par," Iriarte Miguel says.

An A-minus student planning to go to the University of Virginia in the fall, she hears from scores of kids all over the country who are frustrated by the technology's watchdog qualities. A sampling of comments:

"My mom literally watches my sister like a HAWK on Edline," writes a student from Tampa. "Can't say that she has had many fun weekends since Edline was created."

And another note from Los Angeles: "Whatever happened to trying to improve grades before the report cards were sent out? This is so dumb!"

* * *

With computers, everything is binary -- one/two; either/or. There are few in-betweens. Gone are the rough edges, the gray areas. And there are unintended consequences.

Technologies often solve and cause problems at the same time. Cellphones, advertised as devices for knowing the whereabouts of someone at all times, also allow that someone to call from, and pretend to be, anywhere. Edline enhances communication among parents, teachers and students. And it can also destroy communication.

Sherry Turkle, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, warns against "overtechnologizing." A grade-tracking system like Edline, Turkle says, "sounds to me terribly intrusive."

The best way for parents and students to communicate is to talk about what is going on at school, she says. "When you just see a grade as a number, it's not necessarily opening the possibility of dialogue. Potentially it's closing down dialogue."

Turkle says Edline reminds her of the panopticon, an 18th-century idea for a specially designed building that would enable jailers to watch prisoners without the prisoners knowing they were being observed. The panopticon has become a metaphor for Big Brother.

The question the culture should be asking about monitoring technologies, Turkle says, is: "Is this just making children feel surveillance in a way that is uncomfortable for everybody?" The Internet, she says, can be used as a "blunt instrument."

In the old, pre-Internet days, parents who attended back-to-school nights and knew the names of their child's teachers were considered involved. Edline, and other monitoring technologies, take involvement to a whole other level.

"Parent involvement is known to be the key factor in positive student behavior and achievement," says Edline Vice President Marge Abrams. "How parents use the information is a parenting decision. Hopefully, if parents use the information to work with their child in a positive caring way, this parental involvement will lead to good achievement. Edline does not change the way a parent parents. If a parent uses the information in a punishing way, the same parent probably punishes at report card time."

Love it or hate it, Edline is expanding.

Abrams says the service was created in the late 1990s and today is being used in every state and in other countries. The privately owned company won't release its earnings or a complete list of its customers; schools pay about $2 per student for Edline. Edline, she says, has "many thousands of clients," including schools in Harford County, Md., and Chesterfield County, Va.

There are 38 middle schools and about 25 high schools -- 75,000 students -- in Montgomery County, according to schools spokeswoman Kate Harrison. All but three of the high schools began using Edline this year.

Next year, all the schools will use the service.

* * *

Many American parents don't think that keeping close tabs on their children's school activities is so dumb. They think it's smart.

Countless American success stories revolve around a caring teacher, a challenging class, a top-drawer education. A whole subset of the entertainment industry is built around the glorification of pedagogy. Think "Dangerous Minds" and "Finding Forrester."

In this country, "the middle class -- and anyone wishing to become middle class -- believe that education is the escalator to higher social status and financial well-being," says Larry Cuban, a former district superintendent of Arlington Public Schools and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University.

"The early-20th-century progressives saw schooling as the engine of democracy and the instrument by which immigrants would become Americans and middle class," he says. "Both business and civic elites have sold public schooling, getting a diploma, and now going to college as ways of entering the labor market and succeeding."

The same people, Cuban says, "particularly at the beginning of the 20th century and in the past three decades, have linked better schooling and getting credentials to better jobs, a strong economy and higher lifetime earnings."

With so much riding on success in school, watchdog technology such as Edline and its immediate techno-feedback have an obvious appeal. For hovering "helicopter" parents, it's a high-beam searchlight. No bad grade escapes its harsh glare.

Chris Barclay is a member of the Montgomery County Board of Education whose daughter goes to Einstein High School in Kensington. Although the students at Einstein call it "Dreadline," he says that the grade-tracking service "helps hold your child and your child's teacher accountable." The software allows working parents to stay connected.

Laura Hajdukiewicz, a biology teacher at Andover High School in Massachusetts, loves the software. She liked it so much at her old place of employment, the Bromfield School outside of Boston, that she persuaded Andover to try it. She tells of parents who found out through Edline that their son was reading the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," giving them something to talk about at dinnertime. She says a parent who is a cardiologist volunteered to come into her class and speak when he learned through Edline that the class was studying the heart. "It's opening lines of communication," Hajdukiewicz says. "Students like it when they are doing well."

Hajdukiewicz asked more than 100 students in several grades for their opinion of Edline. She says the response was overwhelmingly favorable, although they felt their parents were now micromanaging their grades. "They like it for their own use but would rather keep things 'quiet' which is a fairly typical teenage response," she writes in an e-mail. "They also feel that their parents check it more often than they do!"

Carol Blum, Montgomery's director of high school instruction and achievement, says that Edline has helped to cut down on the number of e-mails and phone calls that parents make to teachers.

In the past, she says, "it wasn't as easy to be in touch with parents." A teacher would send out an interim report if the student was in danger of failing and by the time the parent received it, "it was almost too late," she says. "This way if a student is in trouble in a course, a parent can see it in a timely manner."

And students can know where they stand. "The biggest pro, coming from the high school perspective," says Christopher S. Garran, principal of Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, "is that Edline gives the students more information about their grades and where they stand in class."

A student can go online, Garran says, "and quickly see the impact that a zero might have. He can more easily see the effect of not having worked very hard." At the same time, "when they get an A, it immediately shows them how powerful that is."

Garran tells parents: "How closely you monitor your child's progress is a personal decision.

"Parents have to remember what it was like when they were in school . . . remember when you didn't get that homework assignment in on time."

A lot can happen, he says, "between that first quiz and the final grade."

NEW MATH!

Granholm's call for school aid cut raises the stakes

Districts express alarm; GOP says governor is overreacting

April 27, 2007

BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF and PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

LANSING -- An irate Gov. Jennifer Granholm put the heat on Republican lawmakers Thursday, announcing she would cut money to public schools by $125 per pupil unless the GOP agrees to a tax increase to make up for falling tax revenues.

School officials said the cut would force them to tap emergency reserves or borrow money to balance their budgets -- difficult options with just six weeks left in most districts' school year. If money isn't restored in the new budget year, they said, layoffs and program cuts loom.

"I'm assuming most districts are going to be able to at least keep open their classrooms," said Mike Flanagan, state superintendent of public instruction. But he said some may cut transportation or lay off administrators for the rest of the school year.

Granholm said Michigan's continued weak economy, which translated to lower-than-expected tax revenues, forced her decision. New data, she said, show that the state fell $136 million short of March sales tax projections. She plans to officially notify school districts Monday of the aid cut. The Legislature will have one month to find cash to avoid the reduction.

Granholm's announcement fueled partisan discord over a state budget crisis whose solution has eluded Granholm and lawmakers since she announced in January that reduced tax collections had put the state $900 million in the hole.

Republicans accused Granholm of using alarmist tactics to force a tax increase and insisted the immediate budget problems could be solved through spending cuts.

Granholm also said she would notify physicians and hospitals of reduced state payments for treating Medicaid patients because of a general fund deficit she said has grown to $500 million.

Granholm implored several hundred school officials at a Lansing conference to urge their state senators to raise taxes and avert the cutbacks. She said she has cut state spending so much that further cuts will harm education, public safety and health care.

Senate Republicans have opposed tax hikes for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, although they hinted they would consider new or higher taxes for 2007-08 along with more cost-cutting. Many House Democrats also have shunned a tax increase unless significant numbers of Republicans agree to one.

Granholm, visibly angry, told reporters that Republicans are stonewalling budget negotiations with extremist views against taxes.

"We need revenues to be able to save our schools," she said. "I'm angry at Senate Republicans for having purely an extremist ideology of never, no way ever, regardless of how it impacts Michigan, will they ever consider revenues. That philosophy is damaging to Michigan."

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, dismissed Granholm's label as unproductive name-calling. Bishop, in a statement, said the House and Senate have cooperated to erase part of the budget deficit.

"The governor seems intent on derailing the bipartisan progress via her obsession with a massive tax increase on Michigan families," Bishop said. "Republicans and Democrats have both demonstrated in legislation that the current-year deficit can be balanced with cuts."

Warren Consolidated Schools Superintendent James Clor said a $125-per-pupil cut would cost his district of more than 15,000 students about $1.9 million. He said the district's $13-million reserve would last three months.

"This is a shock, that it has to happen instantly," Clor said. "I hope it's a move that Granholm has to do to have these senators and legislators wake up."

He added, "What happens to districts that have no savings? Do they just close on that date? What do you do if you have no money?"

Avondale Schools Superintendent George Heitsch said a $125-per-pupil cut would cost his Auburn Hills district more than $400,000, which he said would be lumped onto next year's deficit.

Asked whether it would force an early end to the school year, he said, "We would not want that to happen."

This week, the Senate sent to Granholm a House bill that lops $300 million from the School Aid Fund deficit, mostly through accounting maneuvers. The bill still left a $62-million school budget hole. Granholm said she plans to sign it.

Combined with the March revenue shortfall, the School Aid Fund will remain $198 million in the hole when state economists meet in May to officially announce new revenue projections.

Earlier this month, Granholm and the Legislature cut $344 million from the current year's budget.

Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, chairwoman of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees tax issues, said Granholm hasn't done enough to trim such growing costs as health insurance and pensions for Michigan school employees. She said the governor's criticism of Republicans makes it more difficult to reach a budget compromise.

Cassis said a tax increase might be considered as a last resort for the 2007-08 fiscal year, adding that school funding may have to be scaled back, though not as much as Granholm's $125-per-pupil cut.

Contact CHRIS CHRISTOFF at 517-372-8660 or christoff@freepress.com.

Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.

OLD MATH!

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April 27, 2007

Daniel Howes

Daniel Howes: Jig is up on fat school funding

You'd be irritated, too, if you'd been re-elected governor in a landslide last November

And your party, in control of the state House for the first time in a decade, dissed your plan for a 2-percent tax on services in about as much time it took you to propose it.

And your speaker, a private equity shark-turned-Democrat, didn't buy it either. Then he and the guys heading the tax policy committee recast a replacement to the Single Business Tax that Republicans, automakers, key chambers of commerce and other business leaders greeted with the kind of respect and qualified consideration that made you look, well, like an outsider.

And your tactic of whipsawing more revenue from the Senate GOP so you can plow it back into the entitlement maw that is Michigan's public schools didn't work. So the answer, just months after magically coming up with $220 more in (pre-election) per-pupil funding, is to take more than half of it back, call the Republicans "extremists" who "won't consider revenues" and bank that the public buys the charade.

But here's the bipartisan problem facing Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester: The cash burn consuming Michigan public-school funding won't stop unless something changes fundamentally.

Almost every penny of the cash Granholm found last fall, minus the $125 per head she's promising to pull back, wasn't headed to "the kids" anyway. It was destined for negotiated health care benefits and retirement fund payments whose rates are dictated by state bureaucrats.

Here's an example that should be familiar to Bishop. In the current year, according to estimates prepared for the Rochester school board, the 14,800-student system has an estimated payroll of $57.95 million for 847 teachers. The district pays pay an additional 17.74 percent, or another $10.3 million, into the state teacher retirement system.

By the 2008-09 fiscal year, estimates show, Rochester schools expect to be paying 21 percent of payroll (up from 14.87 percent in '04-05) into the system. That's $13.2 million on top of an estimated $62.9 million in payroll for a total of $80.9 million (including payroll taxes), or easily more than $100,000 per teacher.

The point here is not an emotional one, although it will surely be made that, or that teachers are "the problem." It's that the system, absent either massive revenue expansions through growth (unlikely near-term) or annual tax grabs (more likely), is financially unsustainable -- even in comparatively wealthy Rochester.

Rochester's payments into the state retirement system are expected to be 28.1 percent higher by the 2008-09 year than today, while salaries are expected to increase 8.5 percent over the same period.

Compare that to your 401(k) at work, where employers typically contribute 4 percent or 6 percent of salary as a "match" to employee contributions. As salaries grow through raises and promotions, the contributions grow even if the percentage doesn't because to increase wages and, at the same time, increase the percentage match would outrun the ability of almost any business to keep up.

But that's exactly what's going on in many school districts across the state. It's not the only challenge among countless others facing Granholm and the Legislature, but it's a major one pressuring state and local budgets every year -- and it needs to change.

Daniel Howes can be reached at (313) 222-2106, dchowes@detnews.com or http://info.detnews.com/danielhowesblog. Catch him Fridays with Paul W. Smith on NewsTalk 760-WJR.

Business Partnerships for U of M Grant

Business Partnerships for U of M Grant

Esential Elements For Comcast:
Reasons to be involved

· Play a significant role in the reformatting of education.
· Help develop a 21st Century workforce.
· Help the urban community rejuvenate itself.
· To understand your future customers by participation in their digital world.
· To educate a future workforce of loyal employees and customers.
· To create a solid relationship with k-12 schools and the University of Michigan and all of U of M satellites and benefit from there research projects.

In addition to the above reasons to be involved, the following focus more on the corporation side of the ledger:

· Comcast would become more of an admired corporate citizen.
· Participation would put the offerings and brand in front of the public long before students decide on a cable provider as an adult.
· Participation would allow Comcast to tap the creativity and strengths of the urban youth.
· Participation would also allow for the exploration of new markets and applications of yet being introduced products and services.
· Participation ensures a future with scaling of this project across the state and the country.

The Yin and Yang of the 21st Century!

Am I An Anachronism?

21st Century Leaders

Not too long ago I was participating in a national meeting of K-12 CIOs, listening to a panel discussion on the latest developments in district IT shops. Although the three panelists were justifiably proud of their accomplishments, I was struck by the absence of a common component from almost all of the presentations and ensuing discussions. Yet I could not quite put my finger on what was missing.

The more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I began to feel. I started to wonder if perhaps the unnerving feeling was due to a lack of familiarity with key concepts, a fear not uncommon to professionals who reach my age. I not only began to feel old, but wondered for the first time in my 39 years in education (34 in educational technology) if educational technology was passing me by.

My head was spinning. Was I becoming irrelevant? Were changes occurring at such a rate that I did not even know they were taking place? Put simply: Was I becoming an anachronism without even knowing it?

As an urban district technology leader for the past 22 years, I have tried to stay ahead of the curve and took pride in being able to marry ideas and concepts to reality. In recent years, for example, I directed the implementation of a GigE WAN throughout my district, along with a VoIP phone system, and instructional video streaming. Similarly, the district is changing its central information architecture and is in the middle of implementing an ERP. No, I don't think my feeling of discomfort is due to falling behind the technology curve.

Well, it's now 3:30 AM (one of my most productive times for problem solving), and I think I've figured it out: While differing in details, the CIOs who spoke at the conference all focused almost exclusively on the application of project management techniques. Indeed, each panelist showed off visual representations of relatively complex models using a large number of circles, squares, and other geometric forms in different colors.

As I considered the similarities of the project management-oriented presentations, I realized they were also very much alike in what they left out. In all three presentations, not one presenter (whom I respect for their accomplishments) mentioned words such as instruction, school, student, principal, or learning. I wondered if any of them had been to a school during the first week of classes or actually talked to a principal about one of the major information systems his or her staff had developed.

Unfortunately, there are CIOs, who, while designing systems to improve student achievement, have never visited a school, rarely talked to a principal, nor met with a curriculum coordinator. To remain aloof, distant, and even uncaring about the instructional side of the house cannot help a modern CIO, and, in the long term, will impair his or her IT program. It is difficult to get support from those you ignore.

Much of this attitude, I believe, stems from many IT directors coming into districts with little, if any, experience in education. Up until the last 7 to 10 years, IT leadership generally came from those who had years of K-12 experience. However, due to the increasing complexity of technology, the retirements of earlier generations of district-bred leaders, and the emphasis on accountability mandates, districts are increasingly hiring IT specialists from the private sector. This movement has transformed the meaning of IT from "instructional technology" to "information technology."

But while they may be experts in technology, these leaders too often have limited knowledge of the industry in which they function-education.

With a little effort, I believe the barriers between central IT and the schools can be significantly reduced. I suggest some of these for a start:

Set up a CIO/Principals' Advisory Committee to meet every month or two to discuss issues of importance. I did this at my district because it keeps me close to what's important at the ground level, and it lets me know how well my technology team is doing (The principals sometimes tell a different story than my managers.) Also, it lets me test out and gain support for new ideas.

Distribute a quarterly newsletter to key groups in schools. In my setting, for example, I wanted to increase rapport with school technology specialists. Although my leadership team and I frequently attend their monthly meetings, we felt an informational newsletter focusing on their particular needs would help. To see a sample newsletter, visit www.ccsd.net/tls/Newsletter/oct06/newsletter-full.htm (Note: Some of the links will not work outside the district intranet.)

Speak at technology events at schools or those sponsored by different district groups. Virtually all districts have some type of technology-related events going on, whether it is third graders showing off their PowerPoint presentations, a high school robotics competition, or the computer club meeting. While you certainly don't need to attend all of them, occasionally participating in one will help break down the barriers between the schools and your IT organization.

Visit a school. One of the things I enjoy doing, and don't do nearly enough, is to visit a school to see how technology is being used by staff and students. Usually I call up the principal the day before or the day of my trip, and ask if it is okay for me to visit the school for one hour. I assure principals that I'm not there to check on them and that I just need to visit some schools for my own mental health. Almost always they're delighted to host me and have the technology specialist take me around. It's a great opportunity to show off something they are quite proud of and/or hit me up for something special. Either way, I have won.

Support innovative instructional technology projects that are usually associated with schools or instructional applications. For example, recently our purchasing department did not want to buy 80+ tablet laptops for a middle school. They believed that tablets were too expensive. I intervened and not only got the purchasing staff to relent but worked with the vendor to get special pricing. Another time, I took the lead on implementing a Web-based library management system throughout the district. The key point in each of these examples is that I left the "IT Center" and was directly involved in instructional technology.

As for me and my quandary, I feel better now that I've figured out what was bothering me about the presentations. There's nothing anachronistic about a CIO focusing on where the rubber meets the road: students and learning.

Philip J. Brody, Ph.D. is chief technology officer/assistant superintendent of Clark County School District in Las Vegas.



21st Century Skills: Will Our Students Be Prepared?

Editor's Pick

Learning for the 21st Century, a report from the public-private coalition known as the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, articulates a vision of how schools can best prepare students to succeed in the first decades of the 21st century. Central to the report's recommendations is a call for schools to focus on six key elements of 21st century learning:

1. Core Subjects: The authors reaffirm the importance of the core subjects identified by No Child Left Behind but challenge schools and policymakers to expand their focus beyond "basic competency" to understanding the core academic content at much higher levels.

2. Learning Skills: "To cope with the demands of the 21st century," the report states, "students need to know more than core subjects. They need to know how to use their knowledge and skills-by thinking critically, applying knowledge to new situations, analyzing information, comprehending new ideas, communicating, collaborating, solving problems, and making decisions."

3. 21st Century Tools: Recognizing that "technology is, and will continue to be, a driving force in workplaces, communities, and personal lives in the 21st century," Learning for the 21st Century emphasizes the importance of incorporating information and communication technologies into education from the elementary grades up.

4. 21st Century Context: Experiences that are relevant to students' lives, connected with the world beyond the classroom, and based on authentic projects are central to the sort of education the Partnership for 21st Century Skills defines as the appropriate context for learning in the information age.

5. 21st Century Content: The report's authors believe that certain content essential for preparing students to live and work in a 21st century world is missing from many state and local standards.
6. New Assessments that Measure 21st Century Skills: "As pervasive as assessment seems to be today," the report says, "it remains an emerging and challenging field that demands further study and innovation." Recommendations include moving beyond standardized testing as the sole measure of student learning; balancing traditional tests with classroom assessments to measure the full range of students' skills; and using technology-based assessments to deliver immediate feedback.

Just as the CEO Forum on Education and Technology included a StaR (School Technology and Readiness) Chart in its 2001 report to aid schools in identifying their level of technology readiness and preparation, Learning for the 21st Century features a fold-out MILE (Milestones for Improving Learning and Education) Guide to help measure progress at preparing students to meet the challenges of the new millennium.

What's New Here?

Many of the themes explored in Learning for the 21st Century will be familiar to educators who have read the 1991 SCANS Report (Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills) or subsequent reports issued by the CEO Forum. Both groups outlined a variety of skills-including higher-order thinking, personal abilities, and technology literacy-essential for preparing students for a knowledge-based economy.

So what is new about the recommendations being made by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills? "To some degree, the recommendations are not all that new," says Chris Dede, professor of learning technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and an education advisor to the partnership, "and that, in itself, is newsworthy. The fact that educators and business leaders keep returning to many of the same findings means we have a lot of confidence in them-that they're not part of a temporary fad."

Another partnership advisor, Paul Resta, director of the Learning Technology Center at the University of Texas at Austin, agrees that the consensus arrived at by the partnership is noteworthy-especially because of the large number of stakeholders from business, K-12 schools, higher education, and government who participated in its creation. In addition, he points out that it delves deeper into the how of delivering 21st century skills than its predecessors.

John Wilson, vice chair for the 21st Century Skills partnership and executive director of the National Education Association adds that, "While previous works have focused on technology, this goes beyond that to what we need to do to prepare students for a world that is vastly transformed by technology, making it necessary to constantly learn and adapt."

NCLB and 21st Century Skills: Contradictory or Complementary?

For some who attended the Learning for the 21st Century press conference, there was something incongruous about listening to John Bailey, director of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology, endorse the report-including its suggestion that "standardized tests can measure only a few of the critical skills that we hope our students will learn." After all, for many educators today the government's No Child Left Behind program is synonymous with high-stakes testing and a narrowing vision of what constitutes achievement.

For example, social studies teacher and media coach Marco Torres laments the fact that his students, who create outstanding multimedia projects that demonstrate both knowledge and creativity, are forced to attend four-hour Saturday "drill-and-kill" sessions if they fail to pass a weekly test. "Many of my colleagues feel too overwhelmed to focus on teaching or learning. Louder, slower, and more repetitive seems to be the pedagogy of choice of low-income schools like mine," he says.

ISTE president Jan Van Dam concurs with the feeling that, "Many districts are so overwhelmed and concerned about the NCLB requirements and potential financial repercussions of not complying, that for lots of them the safest route is the 'back-to-basics' approach-focusing entirely on 20th century skills at the expense of 21st century ones."

But both Van Dam and Bailey believe that it does not have to be this way. "It's not an either/or choice," says Bailey. "We can teach higher-order thinking skills and have students using 21st century tools at the same time that they master core content areas." He points out that NCLB does not mandate that measures of average yearly performance be based solely on tests of lower-order thinking skills and that many of the 21st century skills outlined in the partnership's report are already part of state standards.

"I wholeheartedly agree that there is no need for an either/or approach," adds Van Dam. "There needs to be less fear and more creativity applied to the methods used to meet the needs of NCLB."

Basic Skills Revisited

One of the key points of Learning for the 21st Century, according to John Wilson, is that we are defining essential skills too narrowly. "As our nation focuses on the basics, it is noteworthy that government, educators, and private industry are unified in underlining that 21st century skills must be part of today's basics," he says.

The report states, "Literacy in the 21st century means more than basic reading, writing, and computing skills. As writer Alvin Toffler points out, 'The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.'"

Learning for the 21st Century reminds readers that NCLB defines core subjects to include the arts, civics, and a number of other subjects often overlooked in back-to-basics curricula and that many states and districts already incorporate a wide range of learning skills into their standards. Now, the report says, it is time to "emphasize them strategically and comprehensively" - and to add some more key skills to the list.

Technology's Role Today

Although the authors are careful to point out that there are plenty of learning skills that have nothing to do with technology, they describe 21st century tools - including computers, telecommunications, and audio- or video-based media - as critical enablers of learning in a number of realms. And the fact that the information age that has resulted from the widespread adoption of such tools places us "in a world of almost unlimited streams of trivial and profound information, of enormous opportunity and difficult choices," necessitates an emphasis on information and communication technology literacy skills that will allow students to make sense of it all.

While many education, business, and government leaders concur with the importance of technology as a tool for 21st century teaching and learning, this realization contrasts sharply with what is happening in a number of states and districts as they scramble to respond to budget cuts and accountability pressures. "Unfortunately," says Margaret Honey, vice president and director of EDC's Center for Children and Technology, "in the schools that have the most pressure on them to improve test scores, technology often takes a back seat, along with the arts or anything that is seen as peripheral."

"I think everyone recognizes the importance of technology," agrees Ginger Jewell, coordinator of educational technology for the Clarke County School District in Georgia, "but it sometimes comes down to Solomon-like decisions. We've lost the technology money that was generated by the lottery and that is a tremendous blow. We also had to scale back the regular budget to accommodate unfunded NCLB mandates." Nevertheless, she says, her district continues to support its technology program with help from a local sales tax. "I actually think we're experiencing better use as teachers see the technology as a tool to accomplish academic goals rather than an add-on to an already busy day."

Having Faith in 21st Century Teaching

The authors of Learning for the 21st Century are clear that an emphasis on learning skills, 21st century tools, global awareness, and other elements of 21st century curriculum can - and should - coexist with core content. "Both [basic and 21st century skills] are essential," they write, "and, when taught concurrently, one reinforces the other."

According to Chris Dede, "In their focus on achievement lots of people are going back to behaviorist ideas from the first half of the 20th century, which said that basics must come first, and only when you know all the basic concepts and skills can you move on to learn about more complex interrelationships. Unfortunately, many kids get bored or burned out long before they get there. The drill kills their natural curiosity and they stop even trying."

"There is plenty of evidence," he continues, "that it is possible to learn the simple things in the process of addressing a complicated problem. Given interesting but complex challenges and projects, students are often motivated to learn the basic computation skills or simple facts that they need to master the problem."

The value of rich, multidisciplinary, technology-infused learning seems so obvious to educators who have seen its impact on young people that it is often frustrating to be asked to prove it using tests. Eeva Reeder, educational consultant and project-based learning specialist, speaks for many of her colleagues when she says, "A massive amount of research has made it clear how people learn and don't learn. The fact that it is still being debated is baffling. We need to use our common sense and pay attention. All human beings learn by doing, analyzing, talking, processing, and problem-solving. Talking at kids never has been and never will be an effective way to help them learn."

At the same time, there is good news for those who are resigned to the idea that test scores will continue to take center stage, at least for the near future. According to a number of researchers, rich 21st century learning experiences commonly do translate into higher test scores. Paul Resta describes two projects he worked on with secondary schools in Texas. Both focused on cooperative learning and knowledge construction in the context of English and social science instruction. "The teachers and administrators were very nervous about the nontraditional nature of the activities and how they would affect test scores. In the end, the students involved in these two projects all scored as well as their peers on some of the tests and significantly better on others."

It is interesting to note that these sorts of gains are true in spite of the fact that allowing students to solve real-world problems, collaborate with others, and create presentations to demonstrate their learning takes more time - time that might otherwise be used to speed through additional content material. Both Dede and fellow advisor Margaret Honey point to the importance of deep learning. "A broad overview is important," says Honey, "but stopping frequently to involve students in projects that allow them to go deep is equally important. We need a balanced approach."

Ironically, educators' worries about test scores might eventually be what it takes to make them broaden their teaching methods. "Let's be honest," says Michael Simkins, creative director for the California-based Technology Information Center for Administrative Leadership, "we can get some initial gains on tests by teaching to the test and practicing test taking skills. Ultimately, though, we're going to hit an achievement wall. The irony here is that teachers are most likely to drill basic skills even harder in their effort to keep getting new achievement gains when, in fact, it may only be through engaging kids in higher-order thinking activities that they have any chance of breaking through those subsequent achievement barriers."

New Assessments and Measures of Progress

Regardless of the impact of 21st century learning on test scores, there is clearly a need for assessment tools that measure those essential skills that will never be captured by traditional tests. Even before Learning for the 21st Century challenged states and districts to add new skills to their lists of essentials, many of the standards on the list were being played down or ignored simply because they weren't easy to measure. Or, as the report reminds us, "What gets measured gets taught... We must measure what we value - or it won't be taught."

While the urgency is evident, the mandate for what must follow is a little fuzzier. Twenty-first century project and portfolio assessments are great classroom-level tools for monitoring the progress of individual students but, as the report mentions, "These assessments typically are not valid or reliable for broad comparisons across classrooms or schools." Other new approaches, such as computer-delivered tests, are helping with scoring and rapid feedback to schools - an essential element if we are to use the results to help students - but do not dramatically broaden the sorts of things that are being tested.

Whether second-generation assessment tools can bridge the gap - allowing the entire nation to focus on what's important, not just what can be tested easily - is a big question. John Wilson, for one, is optimistic that "technology will help us find ways to more effectively utilize assessment both for identifying overall achievement patterns as well as for helping individual students learn. Devising these much-needed quality assessments must be a priority of our policymakers."

In the meantime, the report places surprisingly little emphasis on other measures of progress that so many educators point to as compelling evidence that their 21st century teaching is paying off. While NCLB legislation permits states to use a variety of measures for measuring annual yearly progress, factors such as student attendance, college acceptances, or student and parent satisfaction, are receiving far less publicity than test scores.

And yet those are the factors that administrators at New York's widely respected Urban Academy tout when they talk about the measures of success that matter to them and their school community. "Why is Urban Academy so successful?" they ask at their Web site - and then go on to explain that 97 percent of their graduates enter four-year universities, they have virtually no violence, theft, or teacher turnover, and their attendance and dropout rates are far better than those seen in most other New York City schools.

And those are the factors Marco Torres takes pride in as he surveys his classroom. "My students just had a film festival last week that over 500 community folks attended. Within three days, the Web site had 22,000 hits," he says. "Here, in one of the poorest areas of Los Angeles County, I have kids who have self-esteem, who are going to college, who are being recruited to help make companies and institutions more effective, who are being treated like queens and kings by our elected officials and being recognized in front of L.A. City Council for their commitment to giving our community a voice. Come to my class when the bell rings and see how many kids get up to go home. They want to be there, they want to finish their projects, they want to learn more." If that's not achievement, what is?

By Judy Salpeter.

This article first appeared in Technology & Learning.

April 20, 2007

The One-to-One Tsunami

Pamela Livingston

from Technology & Learning

It's on the horizon. Will you be ready?

"Anytime, Anywhere Learning" was coined by Microsoft way back in 1995, yet despite exponential advances in technology and drastic price reductions, we're still falling sadly short of that dream 14 years later.

That is, most of us are.

From computer access to software quality to Internet connectivity to high speed to wireless, the digital divide's newest defining characteristic is 24/7 access to a personal computing device. So if you are not at least beginning to consider one-to-one for your school or district, you're heading for the wrong side of the divide.

When Australia's Methodist Ladies' College in Melbourne rolled out the first one-to-one program back in 1990, the world watched with curious eyes. It seemed a luxury, a dream available only to a privileged, wealthy few. Five years later the Anytime, Anywhere Learning initiative reached American shores, with 30 lucky schools partnering up with Microsoft and Toshiba to make laptops possible for each student and educator. Early studies of these programs showed increased student attendance and motivation, expanded curricular offerings, and a leap in educator technology savvy.

However positive, such findings did not provide the "hard" evidence many districts required to commit the substantial time and money resources they'd need to implement such programs. Moreover, with the new layer of state and federal reporting demands instituted by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001, technology funds in districts across the country were being siphoned off for the data management systems just needed to keep up. For a time, one-to-one seemed put on hold in favor of administrative uses of technology for schools.

But laptop, table, and other one-to-one programs did not go away. In fact, the past few years have seen a major resurgence of the trend, with a wave of national reports and studies, the founding of the One-to-One Institute, mainstream media announcements of high-profile district-vendor partnerships, and a plethora of public, private, and statewide initiatives.

The New Wave

Today, there are a number of large-scale initiatives—mostly laptop and tablet—in the U.S. According to the American's Digital Schools Survey 2006, 24 percent of all school districts with student populations of 2,500 and up had begun or were planning to implement one-to-one programs.

As with the first programs, partnerships remain key. Henrico County, Virginia's initiative, with Apple and Dell on board, provides 28,000 laptops to students and teachers in grades six through 12. In 2002, Maine worked with Apple to break new ground with the first statewide one-to-one program. That year, all middle school students received laptops, and the program continues to grow with more than 32,000 units now out to students and 4,000 to educators. Following in Maine's footsteps, Michigan instituted its statewide Freedom to Learn program in 2003, and now provides approximately 23,000 HP laptops to students and another 4,000 to teachers.

The newest one-to-one initiatives are being implemented in South Dakota, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. South Dakota's Classroom Connections project involves a pilot group of about 5,000 students with Gateway convertible notebook computers. In Illinois, the I-Connect one-to-one plan, rolled out its initial Technology Immersion Pilot Program last September with Apple laptops for 13,000 seventh graders and their teachers. Pennsylvania's Classrooms for the Future selected 79 school districts and has partnered with CDW-G to provide Lenovo ThinkPad laptops for their $20 million initiative.

There are also many district- specific programs, and quite a few independent and parochial schools. Examples include Cincinnati Country Day School now graduated to Toshiba tablet PCs, Suffield Academy in Connecticut, an Apple school—and the first U.S. high school to require a laptop for every student—and Bishop Hartley School in Columbus, Ohio, now deploying HP tablets to every junior and senior and recognized last year as one of the three winners of the Catholic Schools for Tomorrow Award.

With laptop or tablet programs proliferating, and initiatives such as Nicholas Negroponte's global "One Laptop Per Child" gaining international press even outside the education industry, clearly, one-to-one programs have reached what author Malcolm Gladwell terms "the tipping point." So what has made one-to-one a "sticky" trend when so many others have come and gone?

Self-directed Learning

For educators, the key to one-to-one success is in a well-managed and thoughtfully approached classroom program. When each student has a "digital assistant"—the emerging, more descriptive term for an Internet-connected device—with basically unlimited access, then they can get to the thinking and problem solving faster. At the Peck School, for example, where I am head of technology, students learn the Pythagorean theory and then work with Key Curriculum Press's Geometer's Sketchpad to instantly create and revise geometric visuals to test out ideas. The one-to-one environment also facilitates the writing process by making it easy to write, edit, revise, rewrite, and then email the latest version from home to the teacher, all without having to wait for a lab, classroom, or home computer to become available.

Higher-Order Thinking

The process of acquiring and manipulating information and ideas is shortened when every student has a digital assistant, which means analysis and higher-order thinking can happen more readily.

So long as school is divided into blocks of approximately 40 to 60 minutes, making time a precious commodity, laptops or tablets can help learning because time spent gathering data is shortened. At the Peck School, master teacher Don Diebold leverages the one-to-one environment by having seventh and eighth grade science students conduct experiments with probes to evaluate changes in heat and motion. Each learner has an opportunity to test and analyze results because every student has a probe and a laptop. Previously, probes had to be brought in and connected to a few computers and students queued up to the test station and later worked with paper turning results into charts. Now the process of testing and evaluating is simple and seamless, and charts can be created quickly, adapted, corrected, and redone in minutes.

When students have access to a digital assistant 24/7, their research, writing, calculations, presentations, and problem solving are likely to be better organized, more thorough, and more polished.

More Time on Task

Having a digital assistant in any form to take from school to home will mean better work in terms of research, writing, and presentation. This is because the programs built into the device, such as word processing, spell and grammar checking, and presentation tools, such as Powerpoint, help to correct, shape, and hone the work. The school-to-home element is also vital here because all students have ongoing and equal access to key applications and files without being handicapped by the older software they might have on home computers or at the local library. It also acts as an organizational tool so students can keep all their assignments and thoughts in one place. As well, parental involvement is increased when students can access school-based resources, such as electronic databases like Encyclopedia Britannica, Facts on File, The New York Times online, and other reference material, to cite and check information.

This home-to-school functionality was a key reason the Peck School initially went to laptops back in 1998. Once every student had a laptop with e-mail and an Office suite, homework completion became more consistent.

Evidence

Despite a good body of anecdotal evidence on the success of one-to-one programs—increased student attendance and motivation, more collaborative professional development, and more efficient use of campus resources when labs are freed up for other uses—case studies provide additional detailed insight into the impact of one-to-one. (See "One-to-One Case Studies" on www.techlearning.com).

At the Urban School in San Francisco, summer technology workshops pair students and teachers for training on project-based learning activities, resulting in an innovative program.

Central Considerations

However, the promise of one-to-one cannot be realized in isolation of other key factors. The following considerations are central:

Plan Carefully. There is no single correct pathway to one-to-one—every school, district, and state must plot its own journey. Those that spend time evaluating their goals and needs, surveying other programs, and aligning their program with district goals, missions, and philosophy find the greatest success. These goals and missions are often very specific, such as St. Thomas Episcopal Parish School in Coral Gables, Florida, which decided that laptops might provide the ideal vehicle to facilitate differentiated learning.

Thinking, planning, involving s communicating, documenting, visiting other schools, and attending workshops and conferences are all important activities. One cautionary tale for us to consider regarding planning and communication is Cobb County, Georgia, which decided to invest in one-to-one without fully informing its taxpayers of all the details of how existing funding would be spent. The county planned to purchase 63,000 laptops using money available for replacing hardware but did not tell taxpayers that instead of replacing hardware they planned to start a completely new initiative. Taxpayers did not like this approach, so they stopped the whole program with a lawsuit. Administrators resigned and students did not receive their laptops.

Explore Funding Options. Note that some schools, districts, and states are tackling the cost of hardware and network products by using E-Rate money, which is tied to the number of students eligible for the school-lunch program, requires attention to several forms and deadlines, and makes filtering mandatory. Forming consortia with other districts to allow bulk purchasing is another route to cost cutting. And leasing equipment can also be a good option—requiring fewer dollars up front and a lower yearly cost spread out over many years. Many large-scale initiatives are in the position of having to request funding every few years, which can be a real nail-biter. The sooner you can fold all your laptop or tablet funding into yearly capital expenditures the better. Michigan, Maine, and West Virginia have all been in the position of renegotiating funding after their initial outlays, and so far all three have successfully continued their programs.

Evaluate your infrastructure. Even if you have a computer network in place—and most schools do—you need to consider the load of adding roaming computers to the picture. To assess this cost, you must consider the building, the hardware, the type of network, the number of computers, and your particular wireless plan (the benefits of laptops or tablets and ubiquitous computing from classroom-to-classroom really rely on wireless). Make a plan for where to install your wireless access points, how to set them up, and where to run more cables. If you already have a network, your cost will involve more access points for wireless capability. Where to place these access points depends on the distance between access points and how many computers will connect to each. Also, think about electricity and how students will keep their devices charged. Some schools set up charging areas around their buildings or hand out spare batteries or power adapters.

Consider TCO. This means not just the cost of hardware, which is sizable, but the requirement for computer support staff and technology coordinators, professional development, electricity, cabling and infrastructure, printer cartridges, and even paper. And sustainability should be part of the discussion. Replacing laptops or tablets every three or four years, continuing professional development, salary increases for support staff and coordinators, replacing network components, maintenance contracts for hardware, and other products all need to be projected year after year.

In a one-to-one environment, a major challenge to educators is learning how to integrate everyday student technologies, such as simulations, instant messaging, MySpace and other social networking resources, into the regular curriculum

Put security measures in place. When first launching a one-to-one program, new security issues need to be addressed, including the physical security of laptops, tablets, or other devices being transported from school to home and other locations. Even if you aren't allowing students to bring home their digital assistants—and this would be unfortunate, as one of the best values of one-to-one is in the possibility of independent learning—students still need to move around the school carrying them somehow. Options include all-in-one cases that stay on the computers, padded backpacks, and custom neoprene sleeves.

Other security issues include protection against viruses, spyware, and unfiltered Internet access. If you have a laptop or tablet moving from school to home and back, be sure the computing devices are equipped with updated protection software. And in this age of WiFi, sometimes homes or businesses adjacent to the school offer unsecured Internet access, so every so often it's a good idea to walk around with a wireless laptop or tablet and see if there are other networks that can be accessed. The availability of these other networks is important to know because your neighbors might not filter their Internet access—and, if you are accepting federal money, you are mandated to provide filtered access.

Make high-quality professional development a priority. The single most important factor in any classroom is the teacher, so if he or she does not embrace laptop, tablet, or other personal-device learning, your program will not be successful. Schools, districts, and states that spend considerable planning and time on professional development are seeing their programs work. A great example is the Irving, Texas, Independent School District, which provides videos made for and by their teachers specifically on classroom management techniques.

Professional development is as unique as different schools and districts are—but there are some important common elements.

In professional development sessions, be sure to address not just curriculum issues, but also one-to-one specific concerns—for instance, how to deal with distractions when each student has an Internet-connected digital assistant at their command during lessons. This issue has been one of ongoing heated debate over the years, with one camp on the side of "we must lock down computers so students can't stray" versus the other claiming, "If we teach interesting stuff they won't be distracted." In my opinion, the reality is somewhere in between. It's always the teacher's responsibility to supervise classroom activities, so walk around, look over shoulders, and check things out—have consequences for being on YouTube instead of researching world history. The bottom line is that one-to-one opens up a world of possibilities for instruction and self-guided learning. For this, we need to strike a delicate balance between guiding, nurturing, and protecting our kids and providing them with the wings to explore, think, and innovate in their own right.

Keeping a close on eye on what students are doing in the classroom is part of every educator's responsibility when each learner has a personal digital assistant. (photo courtesy of Apple)

On the Horizon

The evidence of success of one-to-one programs is increasingly going public, and large-scale initiatives are gaining a momentum of critical mass. Clearly, beginning to think one-to-one is mandatory for districts and states today. The tsunami will be hitting the beach before you know it.

Pamela Livingston is the author of 1-to-1 Learning: Laptop or Tablet Programs That Work.

While higher expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies.....I propose WE DO MORE!

MIKE FLANAGAN: RETHINK EDUCATION FOR FUTURE

While the policymakers in Lansing wrangle about how much education Michigan can afford, State School Superintendent Mike Flanagan wants to make one thing clear: our state cannot afford to settle for the level of education we have provided in the past.

Flanagan says that does not necessarily mean spending a lot more money. To a large degree, it comes down to raising the bar and expecting more from kids, teachers and parents.

"It's not corny to say that if you expect more, you will get more," Flanagan said.

It's also time to re-think the way teachers are trained, Flanagan said. Techniques that might work with college-bound kids, for example, might not be adequate to give others the math they now need to get jobs in fields like home building. He said educators also need to find ways to weave technology into their teaching methods.

Podcast: WWJ Newsradio 950's Greg Bowman talked with Mike Flanagan as part of WWJ's Our Michigan, Our Future project. To listen, click here.

Education Reformers!

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April 25, 2007

Billionaires Start $60 Million Schools Effort

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

Eli Broad and Bill Gates, two of the most important philanthropists in American public education, have pumped more than $2 billion into improving schools. But now, dissatisfied with the pace of change, they are joining forces for a $60 million foray into politics in an effort to vault education high onto the agenda of the 2008 presidential race.

Experts on campaign spending said the project would rank as one of the most expensive single-issue initiatives ever in a presidential race, dwarfing, for example, the $22.4 million that the Swift Vets and P.O.W.s for Truth group spent against Senator John Kerry in 2004, and the $7.8 million spent on advocacy that year by AARP, the lobby for older Americans.

Under the slogan “Ed in ’08,” the project, called Strong American Schools, will include television and radio advertising in battleground states, an Internet-driven appeal for volunteers and a national network of operatives in both parties.

“I have reached the conclusion as has the Gates foundation, which has done good things also, that all we’re doing is incremental,” said Mr. Broad, the billionaire who founded SunAmerica Inc. and KB Home and who has long been a prodigious donor to Democrats. “If we really want to get the job done, we have got to wake up the American people that we have got a real problem and we need real reform.”

Mr. Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, responding to questions by e-mail, wrote, “The lack of political and public will is a significant barrier to making dramatic improvements in school and student performance.”

The project will not endorse candidates — indeed, it is illegal to do so as a charitable group — but will instead focus on three main areas: a call for stronger, more consistent curriculum standards nationwide; lengthening the school day and year; and improving teacher quality through merit pay and other measures.

While the effort is shying away from some of the most polarizing topics in education, like vouchers, charter schools and racial integration, there is still room for it to spark vigorous debate. Advocating merit pay to reward high-quality teaching could force Democratic candidates to take a stand typically opposed by the teachers unions who are their strong supporters.

Pushing for stronger, more uniform standards, on the other hand, could force Republican candidates to discuss the potential merits of a national curriculum, a concept advocates for states’ rights deeply oppose and one that President Bush has not embraced.

The initiative will be announced today in South Carolina, a day before the first Democratic debate. Similar publicity is scheduled for the first Republican debate early next month in Simi Valley, Calif.

Mr. Bush made education a major theme in 2000, paving the way for the No Child Left Behind law and its emphasis on testing. In 1992, President Bill Clinton proposed an array of education initiatives. But this year the issue is overshadowed by the war in Iraq, terrorism and health care.

“Right now it’s too low on the list of priorities for all the candidates,” Mr. Broad said, “and our job is to get it up on the list.”

The project’s first print advertisement addresses the national focus head on, showing a student misspelling “A histery of Irak” on a blackboard. “Debating Iraq is tough,” the advertisement says. “Spelling it shouldn’t be. America’s schools are falling behind. It’s a crisis that takes leadership to solve. So to all presidential candidates we say, ‘What’s your plan to fix our schools?’ ”

The effort will be directed by Roy Romer, the former Democratic governor of Colorado and the recent superintendent of schools in Los Angeles, and by Marc Lampkin, a Republican lobbyist and former deputy campaign manager for Mr. Bush. It will be financed by the billionaires’ respective foundations, which they established with their wives, Melinda Gates and Edythe L. Broad. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is far larger, having disbursed $1.8 billion in education grants compared with $250 million by the Broad Foundation.

Mr. Broad has long been a major political donor, primarily to Democrats, and has been particularly well known as a friend and supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton. He has contributed personally to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign as well as to other Democratic candidates.

Mr. Gates also gives handsomely, though to campaigns in both parties. The two men emphasized that their education advocacy was nonpartisan.

Supporters of the project also include Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska; Ken Mehlman, the former Republican Party chairman; and Louis V. Gerstner, the former chief executive of I.B.M. Several of the presidential candidates yesterday applauded the billionaires’ effort, but some bristled at the notion that they were not paying sufficient attention to education.

“I think 70 days into a campaign that has yet to choose any nominees for either party, to make a sweeping kind of analysis that they are not talking about education is probably a little premature,” said Kevin Madden, a spokesman for former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a Republican. “If anybody goes onto the campaign trail with Governor Romney, they’ll recognize that education is an important issue to him and to voters.”

A campaign spokesman for Hillary Clinton said Mrs. Clinton was pleased that the issue would get “much-needed attention.”

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, a Democratic presidential candidate who has proposed legislation calling for tougher and more uniform education standards, issued a statement praising the Strong American Schools effort. “I look forward to including elements of the Gates-Broad initiative in the current dialogue on how to improve our nation’s schools,” Mr. Dodd said.

Bill Hogan, a senior fellow at the Center for Public Integrity and director of the Buying of the President 2008 project, which is scrutinizing the influence of money in the campaign, said the new effort could prove remarkable in its spending level.

“If we are talking about efforts in presidential campaigns to promote discussion or debate of an issue, there has been nothing like this,” Mr. Hogan said. “This would be off the charts.”

10 Point Toss-UP?

HUMMMMM! Chips......any other kind of CHIPS come to mind that might represent "doing good things for young people?"

DPS chief puts faith in God, works for children

April 22, 2007

BY ROCHELLE RILEY

FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

She had them at "Hello, Detroit."

If you think Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick renewed spirits with his State of the City speech last month, you should have heard Dr. Connie Calloway, the new Detroit Public Schools superintendent, introduce herself Thursday.

After working the crowd at Fellowship Chapel with ease and without an entourage, she eventually took the stage to make two things clear: She answers only to God, and she didn't cause the district's problems.

"It was on fire when I got here, so don't blame me," the 30-year educator said. "My tenure begins on July 1, 2007."

Calloway spoke Christian-to-Christian to parents, teachers and volunteers, saying she will offer respect, clear lines of communication and a professionalism that she called "decent and in order."

She told more than 500 people at Communities in Schools-Detroit's annual celebration of parents, educators and volunteers that God led her to accept a job that she didn't want in a city where she wasn't known with problems that she didn't have in her little school district outside St. Louis. He prepared her, she said.

"I now understand all of the challenges and obstacles that I went through for such a time and place as this," she said. "As the first in my family to graduate from college ... I wondered when I was divorced and went to graduate school on $238 a month and I was very happy, very happy to get welfare, when my daughter's prescriptions cost more than my monthly income, I wondered why I had to struggle so hard. And I saw the letter from Detroit inviting me to apply for superintendent. ... I knew I was called as a servant, and my Bible says obedience is better than service."

Calloway said she will not be working for politicians.

"I am an obedient servant, and if you want to know who I fear, it is Him alone," she said. "I'm not a messiah. I'm not a media mogul. I am not a celebrity. ... I'm not a politician, and I'm not a magician. I don't have a silver bullet to fix, as the news people call it, 'the Titanic.' But what I am is a committed Christian ... and I have a 30-year commitment to educating children."

Being a superintendent, she said, is like being a poker player who uses chips with each decision.

"The challenge is to have enough chips for the next decision," she said, adding that people sent her chips when she did well.

"On bad days, when ain't nobody happy with the superintendent, I would look at my chips and play with them and say, 'I remember when they liked me.'

"Send me some chips when you think I've done the right thing for children," she said. "In five years, I expect that bowl to be running over with chips."

If she's still here in five years, she will deserve them. No Detroit superintendent has lasted longer than five years since 1989. But after hearing Calloway speak, I have a sense she will.

Contact ROCHELLE RILEY at 313-223-4473 or rriley99@freepress.com.

Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.

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On Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurialism in Michigan

Monday, April 16, 2007 Updated Study Says Michigan Still Struggles to Grow Entrepreneurs

LANSING - The latest Small Business Foundation of Michigan's Entrepreneurship Score Card, released Monday, finds that Michigan last year lost ground in developing new, high growth job-creating entrepreneurial small businesses. The Score Card gives Michigan a 2006 grade of "D-minus" for entrepreneurial dynamism, down from the 2005 "D" grade and edging closer to the failing "F" grade that Michigan received for 2004. The Score Card project is a collaborative project of the Small Business Foundation of Michigan (SBFM) and GrowthEconomics, Inc. Financial sponsors are Automation Alley, Central Michigan University, the Edward Lowe Foundation, Lawrence Technological University, MERRA, the Michigan Entrepreneurial Education Network, Michigan State Housing Development Authority, Michigan Technological University, MiBiz, Next Energy, Schoolcraft College, Saginaw Valley State University and the Small Business Association of Michigan. The SBFM defines entrepreneurial dynamism as a composite measure of Michigan’s performance in entrepreneurial change, entrepreneurial vitality and entrepreneurial climate. “While Michigan has not achieved its full entrepreneurial dynamism potential, there are some things it does right – it is still making tremendous progress in areas critical to robust entrepreneurship, such as private lending to small businesses, university spinout businesses and entrepreneurial education,” said SBFM executive director Mark Clevey. “However, the economic impacts of factors like globalization and restructuring of old-line industries will continue to have negative effects on entrepreneurship. Michigan needs to do even more if it is to accelerate entrepreneurial dynamism and create more jobs for our struggling economy.” Here’s how Michigan ranks compared to other states: Entrepreneurial Change (the amount of recent entrepreneurial growth or decline in an economy): 46th Entrepreneurial Vitality (the absolute level of entrepreneurial activity): 38th Entrepreneurial Climate (the capability of an economy to foster entrepreneurship): 38th Business Costs and Productivity: 41st Quality of Life: 37th Government Efficiency and Regulatory Environment: 26th Infrastructure: 24th University Spinout Businesses: 16th Workforce Preparedness: 10th Education and Workforce: 8th Broadband Coverage: 4th Private Lending to Small Businesses: 3rd Although the Foundation does not advocate policy positions, Clevey says Michigan can improve its entrepreneurial dynamism by paying greater attention to entrepreneurial education, economic development strategy, access to capital, technology commercialization and developing a business climate that nurtures entrepreneurs. Promotion sponsors are Ann Arbor SPARK, Creating Entrepreneurial Communities (CEC), Michigan State University; Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, Great Lakes Angels, Inc., Great Lakes Entrepreneur Quest, Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance, Michigan Homeland Security Consortium, Michigan Interfaith Power and Light, Michigan Ross School of Business, Center for Venture Capital and Private Equity Finance, Michigan Center for Innovation and Economic Prosperity, James Madison College, Michigan State University; Midland Tomorrow, Michigan Venture Capital Association, Prima Civitas Foundation and Vision Tri-County.

Author: Staff Writer Source: MITechNews.Com

Technology's ability to personalize instruction

Technology's 'greatest potential' for education: Personalizing instruction
By Dennis Pierce, Managing Editor, eSchool News March 29, 2007

Calling technology's greatest potential for education its ability to personalize instruction, Katie Lovett, chair of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), kicked off the group's 12th annual K-12 School Networking Conference in San Francisco March 28.

The conference brought together school district chief information officers and other educational technology leaders from around the globe to discuss key ed-tech challenges and solutions. One of these challenges, Lovett noted in setting the stage for the meeting's opening general session, is the need to break out of the mold of the one-size-fits-all approach to instruction.

Lovett, who is the CIO of Georgia's Fulton County Schools, introduced Chris Dede, the Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Learning Technologies at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. Dede moderated an opening general session that explored two creative yet very different approaches to personalizing instruction with the help of technology.

One of these approaches is Notschool.net, a United Kingdom-based international virtual learning community. Notschool.net offers an alternative to traditional education for students who, for a variety of reasons, can't cope with school.

"We're the absolute antithesis of what school is," said Jean Johnson, project director.
Johnson explained that Notschool allows students to take ownership of the curriculum and shape their own education. They can choose their areas of study, and because instruction is asynchronous and online, they can choose when they'll participate. "Teenagers don't want to learn at 8 o'clock in the morning," she said--but, given a choice over the direction of their education, they do want to learn.

Operating within the confines of the traditional school system, Virginia's Fairfax County Public Schools--the nation's 12th largest school district--is working to create an Individual Learning Plan for each of its 163,000 students. "It's time to craft our vision for the future, instead of dwelling on the past," Superintendent Jack D. Dale told conference attendees.

After Johnson and Dale described their respective projects, Dede moderated a discussion about the challenges each faces. He concluded the session by noting that, while it's clear technology allows educators to personalize instruction "in ways we never could before," school leaders often must confront significant political and cultural hurdles to make this happen.
(Note: For highlights of this opening general session, see the nine-minute video clip titled "Personalized learning.")

Re-engaging students

A key idea to emerge from this opening general session was the need for schools to re-engage today's youth.

"Why are kids on MySpace?" Johnson asked conference attendees. "They're there because they want to be there." But, too often, the same can't be said about school. Today's students are growing up immersed in a world of video games, cell phones, and instant messaging--but when they get to school, they're often forced to leave these technologies at the door.

In an international symposium held March 27, the day before the conference officially began, CoSN brought together education leaders from several nations to discuss how computer games and simulations--interactive media that today's students embrace and understand--can be used as serious learning tools.

The symposium included an address from Lord David Puttnam, a widely respected British filmmaker and education official. Puttnam, whose films include The Mission, The Killing Fields, and Chariots of Fire, is the only non-American to lead a major Hollywood studio, having run Columbia Pictures in the 1980s. After retiring from the film industry, he went to work for the United Kingdom's Education Department, where he has sought to spread the message that today's schools must change if they are to reach a new generation of learners.

In an interview with eSchool News, Puttnam said education can learn a lot from the entertainment industry. The primary lesson? "Know your audience," he said.
(Note: For highlights of the interview with Lord Puttnam, see the five-minute video clip titled "Know your audience.")

The exploration of computer gaming as a serious approach to instruction continued on the conference's first day, with a session examining a project in Japan, called the Instructional Activities Game (AIG), that is using games in teacher education, and another session that looked at existing research on the effectiveness of using games to teach core curricular content.

Links:
Consortium for School Networkinghttp://www.cosn.org/
Notschools.nethttp://www.notschools.net/
Fairfax County Public Schoolshttp://www.fcps.k12.va.us/


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