DIGITAL Innovation: Cheaper, Better, Faster!

Innovators Were the Big Winners in 2006

By Rob Pegoraro
Sunday, December 31, 2006; F02


To succeed, computing and electronics firms need to reinvent themselves regularly, not just their products. Doing business in the same old way only invites competitors to leap ahead.

Consider the firms that were willing to rip up their own scripts this year, such as Google and Apple Computer. They were often rewarded with dramatic success, while those that couldn't play against type, such as Microsoft and most of the big movie studies, fell behind.

Google turned out to be one of the most aggressive innovators of this year. Had the company motored through 2006 on autopilot, it likely would have remained a fine Web search engine. Instead, it accelerated its software-development efforts with free, frequently improved releases, such as the Google Desktop search tool, the Picasa photo editor and the Google Pack of Internet and media software. The company also introduced an assortment of simple sites that offer free calendar, spreadsheet and writing tools. They're not fancy, but are far simpler and cheaper than Microsoft Office.

Apple also surprised the world in 2006. In January, only six months after announcing its decision to switch from its existing PowerPC processors to Intel chips, the company shipped its first Intel-powered models -- and by October, it had finished that transition. At the same time, Apple persuaded most developers of Macintosh software to make the switch to writing for Intel chips, which can't have been an easy sell. But most quickly rewrote their programs, earning impressive gains in performance. Apple's Intel adoption yielded another benefit: With extra software from Apple and other companies, new Macs run Windows programs as fast as a PC can.

Apple, whose fortunes have been rising with the popularity of its iPod, became even more of a force in online media this year by continuing to dominate music and TV-show downloads -- and then adding movies to its iTunes Store.

But video downloads at iTunes were dwarfed by clips produced (or just copied and uploaded) by everyday users at YouTube and rival sites. No cable or satellite-TV service had as much to watch as the Web of 2006.

That should be a lesson to any company doing business online: Nothing is as attractive to users as other people. Whether it's a YouTube video clip, a MySpace or Facebook page, or a Skype videophone call, the best reason to go online is your fellow humans. And because people's tastes are so diverse, companies that try to package their creative outburst into little boxes are unlikely to succeed.

AOL ended its own attempt to run a gated community online in August, allowing free access and finally merging its content with the Web at large. By casting aside one of its core tenets -- charging for its content and limiting access to subscribers -- AOL may have preserved its viability.

Wireless-phone carriers, however, appear determined to repeat AOL's error by only allowing certain, favored sources of media on their networks. This is classic phone-company bossiness, but the paucity of competing mobile-broadband options may let them get away with it.

Movie studios were another contingent that refused to learn in 2006. Even as TV networks finally moved to put their content online, the film industry kept limiting movie downloads to expensive, tightly restricted services that appeal only to viewers who are unable or unwilling to go to a regular video store or open a Netflix envelope.

It's especially critical for studios to stop this now that DVD players outnumber VHS players in U.S. homes and disc sales are leveling off. No new recorded format is set to replace the DVD -- certainly not when users must pick between two competing, incompatible, expensive types of high-definition disc -- so Hollywood will have to meet its viewers online.

Microsoft, traditionally the one company nobody can afford to ignore, found itself dangerously close to becoming irrelevant in 2006 because it, too, fell prey to old habits. Its two most-anticipated, most-delayed products, Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007, slipped even further behind schedule this year. These flagship releases now won't land in stores until the end of January.

The biggest software update that Microsoft did ship, Internet Explorer 7, brought desperately needed updates to Microsoft's antiquated Web browser, but at a high cost in conflicts and bugs reported by readers since its release. Users could be forgiven for questioning the basic stability of Windows if a "simple" browser update could break their printer's software.

Microsoft's other key release, Windows Media Player 11, seemed to refrain from blowing up most computers but still failed at its goal of derailing Apple's iTunes.

Microsoft's software efforts, however, do give one reason for hope: The streamlined, toolbar-driven interface in programs such as the new Media Player and Internet Explorer shows a willingness to experiment and a recognition that the company's past efforts have become impenetrable to many users.

Vista and Office 2007 will feature this new interface; that's an uncharacteristically risky move by Microsoft. If customers take to it -- and if Vista's security and reliability live up to their advance billing -- then Microsoft can hope for a better 2007.

Most of Microsoft's hardware partners showed far less initiative of their own. Their two big headline moments: Massive product recalls after millions of Sony-manufactured laptop batteries were found in danger of exploding, then the revelation that Hewlett-Packard authorized disgraceful spying on reporters covering the company.

Computer makers who only tried to sell more gigahertz and gigabytes should have noted the example of the video-game industry. Nintendo's Wii lacked the high-definition performance of Sony's PlayStation 3 or Microsoft's Xbox 360 but was, by all accounts, ridiculously fun to play -- and sold in massive numbers.

For customers, the best technology news of 2006 may not have been anything in computing or the Internet, but the steady decline in prices for consumer electronics. Buyers of MP3 players, cellphones and digital cameras all benefited from this virtuous cycle -- but not as much as shoppers of high-definition televisions, who saw prices drop by as much as half in 2006.

Better products for less: If only the people making our hardware and software could live up to that ideal all the time.

Michgian Virtual High School meets Michigan Merit Curriculum On-Line Mandate

Michigan Virtual High School "CareerForward" On-line Program

http://www.mivhs.org/content.cfm?ID=693

You might wish to become familiar with this "free program" and explore the "more information" elements (on the top right hand side of the page) particularly, the "preview" and "trailer" items.

Hello!

TIME Tested Tips

Monday, Oct. 19, 1998

Their Eight Secrets of Success
By CLAUDIA WALLIS

It's every parent's hope. One that is nourished by that first toothless grin of recognition, by the infant gaze of almost uncanny alertness and then by the stunning acquisition of words, of ABCs and 1-2-3s. "My child is bright. My child will excel in school. My child will make me proud." Industries are built on such aspirations. There are black-and-white mobiles to stimulate the senses and tapes of Mozart for Your Mind. Later come investments in Reader Rabbit software, encyclopedias and lessons to train every facet of body, brain and soul. But a child's success cannot be purchased, nor, to the frustration of parents everywhere, can it be wished into being.

What does it take to make an excellent student? The student who not only sits at the head of the class (and the horn section, the swim team, the debate society and yearbook) but also enjoys the respect and friendship of teachers and peers? The encouragement of a parent or two certainly provides a foundation. But to find out more, TIME interviewed dozens of superb students from across the country, along with their parents, teachers, mentors and friends. What emerged is some clear patterns and some lessons well worth studying.

THE SWEAT FACTOR

The brick house on a treelined street in Newark, N.J., is impeccable: the iron fence gleams with fresh black paint; the emerald grass looks newly mowed. Inside, the carefully arranged furnishings glow as if purchased yesterday. Everything in the Paliz family home is a reflection of hard work and pride in accomplishment, especially the Palizes themselves.

Bismarck Jonathan Paliz, 17, has watched his immigrant parents struggle and sacrifice to make a life for the family. His father, born in Ecuador, slowly built up a real estate business. His Puerto Rican-born mother Wadette, an administrative assistant, began working at 18 as an office clerk, taking courses to improve her skills and minimal time off for the birth of each of her three children. The family suffered major setbacks when their home was badly damaged twice by fire. Watching his parents rebuild, Bismarck, the eldest child, learned the value of persistence. "My parents have always been fighters," he says. "They are my mentors. They've led by example. They've kept me on track."

The honors track, that is. Bismarck, aptly called Bizzy by friends, was valedictorian at his middle school, and is contending for that honor next June at Science High School, one of Newark's "magnet" schools. He is a star player on the school's math and chemistry teams, and is so computer-savvy that the union pension and benefit fund where his mother works pays him $15 an hour after school to solve technical problems. He may not need the money for college, though. Even before he had thought about applying, he won a $40,000 scholarship to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

Teachers call Bismarck one of the best students they have ever seen. "He's in the top 1%, not just in terms of ability but in terms of positive attitude, initiative and motivation," says Susan Rocco, who has been teaching math for 24 years. More surprising is that Bismarck is not regarded by schoolmates as a hopeless nerd who hangs only with fellow brainiacs. "He's not a teacher's pet," attests his buddy Ruben Ramirez, a self-described jock. "You'd think with all that work, he'd be boring and uptight, but he's loose and he's real funny." Bismarck, for his part, says he just likes to work hard: "I'm happier knowing I'm doing the most I can and achieving the highest I can."

What Bismarck has in abundance is a quality found in all top students: he takes pleasure not merely in the achievement but in the effort. "Students like Bismarck are not expecting things just to happen for them," notes his chemistry teacher, Bruce Karpe. "They're not expecting to be geniuses. They know they have to do it on their own."

A willingness to work flat-out is a trait found almost universally in the best students, says Karen Arnold, a Boston College associate professor of higher education. Arnold has spent 17 years following the lives of 81 Illinois students who graduated at the top of their class. These valedictorians, she found, relied less on native intelligence than on effort. "They were hardworking. They were persistent. School was at the center of their lives."

How do kids learn this? Usually, it's the same way Bismarck learned: having parents who show through their own behavior that persistence pays. A new book by Judith Rich Harris, The Nurture Assumption, has caused a sensation by claiming that parents matter less than peers in shaping a child. Educators tend to disagree. Parents of good students play an essential part as role models, says Janet Won, acting principal at P.S. 124, an elementary school in New York City's Chinatown that runs a "gifted and talented" program. They've taught their kids to "persevere and ask questions, and shown them that hard work will pay off. When the kids make mistakes, it's looked upon as a chance to learn to do something better, rather than as something punitive." The best students, adds Won, "have parents who have responded to their curiosity, nourished and supported things they're interested in and opened up their world."

THE JOY OF LEARNING

Enjolique Aytch of Atlanta was not fated to be a good student. When she was 10 months old, she suffered a seizure and fell into a coma for 24 hours. Doctors warned her mother Cheryl that Enjolique would probably be mentally disabled. Cheryl didn't buy that prognosis. She was convinced that both Enjolique and her older brother Richard were "naturally intelligent" and that all she had to do was offer the right stimulation. "Babies have such a thirst for knowledge! If you can capture their imagination right then, it seems to last forever, but if you let that window close, it's lost forever."

Enjolique, now 17, has emerged a luminous, perceptive teenager who excels at debate, ranks in the top 15% of her class and served last year as class vice president and co-captain of the majorettes. She radiates enthusiasm for school and is one of a small number of African-American students in the advanced-placement classes at Grady High School. "There are others that could do it," she says, "but they get caught up in the stereotypical, 'AP, that's nerdy.'" Physics teacher Delphia Bryant admires Enjolique's can-do spirit: "She's one of those people who will rule the world."

Her mother, a divorced truck driver, was herself a good student before dropping out of all-black Spelman College. She took to "opening the window" with gusto. When teaching her kids the difference between hot and cold, for instance, she made learning fun by steaming up the sink with hot water, rather than waiting to scold a child for venturing too near a hot stove. "It's all in the presentation," she says with a twinkle.

What Cheryl Aytch did for her daughter--what the best preschool teachers all do--was to incorporate learning into everyday life and make it lively. "This means that instead of telling a five-year-old about apples or reading about them in a book, you go pick apples, you peel apples and make apple sauce and apple pies," says Wendy Derrow, a family therapist in Orlando, Fla. "It's that pure, healthy, aren't-we-lucky-to-be-together environment that grows great learners."

Good students tend to have what teachers call a broad "fund of knowledge." They've been taken places; they've seen a bit of the world. If the family resources are slim, it might only be to the city park, a train yard or the kitchen of a restaurant. But the experience has been brought to life for them. "I find the students I love will often say to me, 'My mom took me here' or 'My dad and I did this.' You know these parents are in their lives," says Carol Klavins, who's been teaching middle-school science in central Florida for 31 years. "So many kids never mention their parents!"

THE BEST SAT PREP

Teachers lucky enough to be part of the pre-International Baccalaureate program at Robinson Middle School in Wichita, Kans., are used to classes full of bright, motivated kids. But even in this heady environment, Tyler Emerson stands out. Tyler's 12-year-old mind runs deep, notes one of his sixth-grade teachers, Lura Atherly. "He questions things, but not with surface questions. He asks extending questions: Why? What if...?" When the class studied the Russian Revolution, Tyler wanted to discuss what would have happened if the Romanovs had escaped: What if they had come back after the fall of communism? His writing also reflects an uncommon mix of the imaginative and the methodical. He prefers to write on deadline: "It feels like a deadline unlocks a chest where all my creativity is locked," he explains.

Tyler's thirsty, questing mind was forged in a house full of books. His parents, both lawyers, and his grandmother, who lives with them in Wichita's affluent College Hill, are passionate readers. They began reading to him nightly when he was a baby. By 15 months, he was turning the pages of his Dr. Seuss books, already aware that something wonderful was going on. Tyler's parents still read to his brother John, 8. With Ty, they discuss the Tolkien and Asimov books that are his current favorites. "This house could collapse from the weight of books," says his dad Jeff.

As director of admissions at highly selective Williams College in Massachusetts, Tom Parker is often asked by parents, "What should I do to increase my child's scores on the Scholastic Assessment Tests or make him a better college candidate?" Start early, Parker tells them. "The best SAT-preparation course in the world is to read to your children in bed when they're little. Eventually, if that's a wonderful experience for them, they'll start to read for themselves." Parker says he has never met a kid with high scores on the verbal section of the sat who wasn't a passionate reader. "At the breakfast table, these kids read the cereal boxes. That's what readers do!"

The benefits of reading to kids may seem obvious, but parents tend to stop just when the child's own ability to get through a book is taking flight. Don't quit then! says Regie Routman, a nationally recognized expert on literacy and author of several books for teachers. "Some of the best readers and writers--even in middle school and high school--have parents who are still reading to them. They'll be reading Beowulf and Macbeth and just enjoying the love of language with them."

GRADES AREN'T EVERYTHING

Stephen George Jr. moves through the hallways at Brookline High, near Boston, with the loping grace of a fine athlete. Girls smile at him and are rewarded with his big, Denzel Washington dazzler. Boys reach out to slap his palm. Stephen, 17, is irresistible. Kids are impressed that he's snagged one of the world's coolest after-school jobs: ball boy for the Boston Celtics. Teachers adore his diligence and willingness to stretch beyond what is required. And everyone is amazed that despite his achievements as a student (3.4 average), an athlete (baseball, track and golf), a musician (honors choir) and volunteer (Big Brother, among others), he remains, as headmaster Robert Weintraub puts it, "the nicest guy on the planet, the most decent guy in the school."

Academic competition can get pretty ugly, especially in the home stretch of high school, when valedictory honors and college applications loom. "We have students who would cut off somebody's feet to get ahead," says chemistry teacher Bob Cunningham. "Stephen's not like that. He's actually helpful to others in the lab, which would be anticompetitive." English teacher Denise Bacote agrees, "Some kids say, 'Give me an A.' Stephen asks what he can do to earn an A." Bacote recalls when Stephen insisted on revising an article he wrote for a journalism class, even though it was already graded. "He did another version just to see how to do it better. I think that's the key to student success--working not just for a grade but to improve skills."

Top students tend to be competitive, but getting the grades is not what drives them. For students like Stephen George, Bismarck Paliz, Enjolique Aytch or Tyler Emerson, the goal is internal: to do their personal best. "A lot of the time I'm competing against myself," says Stephen. "I'm setting goals and trying to reach them."

Research suggests that when schools or parents put undue emphasis on grades, learning suffers. A recent study of 412 fifth-graders by Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck at Columbia University found that kids who are praised for their performance and inherent intelligence are less willing to take risks and have trouble weathering any sort of failure. Kids who receive praise for their hard work and persistence tend to blame failure not on a lack of ability but on not trying hard enough. "This encourages them to sustain their motivation, performance and self-esteem," says Dweck.

Alfie Kohn, an educator in Cambridge, Mass., who writes and speaks on behavioral issues, is perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades, test scores and class rankings. All this, argues the author of the influential 1993 book Punished by Rewards and a new book, What to Look for in a Classroom, kills off the love of learning and replaces it with superficial, grade-grubbing behavior. Kohn is appalled by parents who try to motivate their kids by paying for good grades: "You can almost watch the interest in learning evaporate before your eyes!"

Kohn's advice to parents: Stop asking your kids how they did in school today, and ask instead about what they did. "If you have five minutes, talk with your kids for five minutes about what unexpected ideas she came across, or how he feels when he figures something out. Help the child forget about grades, so learning has a chance."

FEED THEIR PASSIONS

Like many little boys in the tricycle years, Mike Terry of Evanston, Ill., loved things that go vroom. Cars in particular. But as he grew older, his fascination didn't fade; it just shifted into higher gear. At age 9, he had a transcendent experience: the Chicago Auto Show, 10 hours of "heaven on earth." From that day on, recalled Mike, now 13, in a seventh-grade paper, "the auto show has been named a 'religious holiday' in the Terry family."

Corvette and Ferrari posters grace the walls of Mike's remarkably tidy bedroom. But the depth of his passion is better gauged by peering into his closet. There, carefully filed, are some 100 issues of Car and Driver, Motor Trend and Road & Track magazines, and also four shelves bearing his miniature sports car collection.

Mike's dad Tom, an actuary, used to be worried that his son's obsession with cars was unhealthy or crazy, but then he began to see its intellectual value. "There's processing of information going on, and he comes up with sophisticated relationships. He'll recommend different cars to different families based on their needs," says Terry. "I realized that it's a passion that could translate into other passions as an adult."

Indeed, indulging Mike's passion for cars may have helped him develop the habit of pursuing all his interests with imagination and depth. The progressive school Mike attends doesn't use conventional grades or report cards, but his performance stands out just the same. "Some students run through their work as if they're on a racetrack. But Mike has the introspection and reflectiveness of a scholar," observes his Latin teacher, Elisa Denja. "His interest in a topic doesn't end in the classroom or with what's in the book."

The word passion comes up a lot when college admissions directors are asked what they look for in a student. "There are lots of students out there who can do the work and get the A's," says Robert Kinnally, dean of admissions at Stanford University. "But who are the students who care deeply about the subject matter and will stay after to ask their teacher for another book?" Both Kinnally and Williams College's Parker bemoan the fact that so many college applicants are "packaged" and pushed by their parents. "Parents are trying to mold their children in ways that would please us," says Parker, "rather than recognizing passions or strong commitments in their children and then encouraging the heck out of those."

One place competitive colleges search for signs of genuine commitment is in extracurricular activities. For many students and their parents, extracurricular activities are a kind of flavor enhancer to sprinkle on a resume: a dash of music, a pinch of poetry club, a soupcon of athletics. But what folks like Kinnally know is that a meaty involvement with any of these activities builds valuable traits like persistence, leadership and the ability to work in teams.

THAT SPECIAL TEACHER

Huan Song arrived in a Chicago suburb two years ago unable to speak much English, but possessed of as much grit as a 14-year-old can muster. The child of divorced middle-class parents in China, she had been sent by her father to live with an aunt and uncle. "I could have had a comfortable life in China, but my father thought I'd have a better future and a more exciting life in the U.S. He made a great sacrifice to let me come here to have a good future."

After just one semester at Glenbard East High School, Huan wanted out of English as a second language classes. She knew they became a way of life for many foreign-born students. Her guidance counselor and teachers warned that she might fail, but the tenacious Huan proved them wrong. Now a senior, she maintains perfect grades in honors classes, competes in debates, is on the math team and serves as vice president of the school choir. "I don't want to sound pompous," she says in her accented but perfect English, "but I just had to fight my way up."

Along the way, Huan found some cherished mentors at school and at church. They helped guide her, particularly when she faced a personal tragedy. Last fall she was eagerly awaiting her father's first visit to the U.S. when he died in a freak accident. Huan's father was a sound engineer by profession, and he and his daughter shared a passion for music. After his death, however, music filled her with pain. "Music is such an intimate thing," says Huan. "The memories it brought up made me sad. So I thought I had to get away from music." Her choral teacher, Ross Heise, interceded. "We hugged and cried together," he recalls. "I told her you can't run away from your problems. You have to embrace them to make you a better, deeper person." Huan regained her balance because of his help and because, she says, "I have love from all over."

Most outstanding students have an outstanding teacher lurking somewhere in their past, a teacher who somehow connected with them. Karen Arnold found this was true of the valedictorians she studied. Principals and parents confirm it. "If you talk with kids, they will tell you about someone who has captured their imagination--gotten hold of them emotionally and intellectually," says Fred Ginocchio, principal of Madison Middle School in Appleton, Wis. He remembers his own third-grade teacher making this kind of breakthrough for him, by reading the autobiography of Black Hawk to the class. "I can picture her still," he recalls. "I was totally taken in. I was a kid who was on the playground all the time. After she read it, I checked it out, and it was the first book I read."

A 1997 study at Columbia University's Teachers College looked at the lives of 100 prominent Americans, ages 40 to 55, and found that those who had come from disadvantaged backgrounds were especially likely to cite the influence of a mentor as a key to their success. Sometimes a caring teacher served "as a parent substitute," says Charles Harrington, who co-directed the study. Sometimes the teacher provided an affirming "turnaround moment," for example, by standing up for a child and saying, "Henry wouldn't lie." That moment of validation, he notes, "transforms Henry."

THE RULES ON HOMEWORK

Structurally, Donny Williams' family sounds like a mess. His mom Darlene had her first child while still in high school. Seven years later, she met and married Donny's father; the marriage lasted 11 years. Donny, now 11, lives in a Randallstown, Md., town house with his mother, his half sister Dawn, 25, and Dawn's child Crystal, 7. Five years ago, the family also took in Donny's cousin Garland, 17, who was struggling with family problems.

Complicated and confusing? Yes. But everyone is thriving. Donny graduated from Winand Elementary School in June and received the Principal's Award, one of the school's highest honors. Other credits: he was acting president of the student government, most valuable player in his basketball league, a Little League star and an accomplished saxophone player. Teachers describe Donny as a natural leader who lights up a room with his charm. His success, says assistant principal Judi Callanan Devlin, "is due to his innate ability and his work ethic--and then his mother is very clear about her expectations for him."

Darlene, a captain in the Maryland Army National Guard, runs a tight ship. "Homework is when they come in the door," she insists. "They see nothing, do nothing, until homework is done, and the saxophone is part of that requirement." Donny seems to relish this kind of structure and has a firm grasp on his complicated schedule of sports practices, music lessons, church classes and other commitments. He isn't one to procrastinate: his basketball coach and music teacher marvel at Donny's enthusiasm, even for repetitive drills and scales. "It's such an insight for kids to know the power of practice at such a young age!" muses Devlin. As for his mom's homework-first policy, no problem. Says Donny: "I made it up myself!"

Do most good students crack their books the minute they get home? Are the Williams-family rules the way to success? Not necessarily. Bismarck Paliz likes to work late at night. "I've had projects due the next day, and I've had to stay up till 5 a.m.," he says. His multimedia work style horrifies his mother: "He has the TV on, the headphones on his ears, and he's doing his homework on the computer," says Wadette Paliz with a shudder. But she doesn't argue with success. Stephen George has also been known to do homework with the television blaring. "Initially I objected," says his father Stephen Sr., "but he convinced me he was able to focus."

If there is a rule on homework, it's this: let them do it in the way that works for them. Not every child needs silence and a desk facing the wall. Not every child can settle down to the task right after school.

Another rule on homework: be involved, but not too much. Math-homework sessions at Mike Terry's house used to end in tears. "I would lose patience with him," admits Tom Terry, who excelled in math as a youth. "Comparing him to the ways I might have done things at his age didn't work." He had to learn to be less overbearing and to see things from his son's point of view. "We care passionately about how he's doing, but we're just calmer on the outside." Says Mike's mother Karen: "Kids are not vending machines, where you put in a quarter and then a certain product comes out. There's only so much you can do, and then you have to sit back and wave at them."

The same rule applies to parental involvement with the school: be involved, but make sure it's constructive. Parents of successful students are advocates for their child but are supportive, rather than combative, toward the school. "These aren't parents who blame you and want to know why the system didn't come through for their child," says Shirley Harden, principal of Winand Elementary, Donny Williams' alma mater. "They want to know how they can work with you and make things best for their kids."

STAND UP AND CHEER

Sarah Seidman, 17, arrives home from school bearing a deep-blue bowl intricately glazed with a silhouetted tree, its branches looping over the rim and into the bowl's basin. "Oh, my God, that's beautiful!" exclaims her mom Ilene about her daughter's handiwork. Pottery is just one of Sarah's talents. The Brookline, Mass., senior is an honor-roll student, co-captain of the tennis team, a painter and an activist against racism. Her parents, both busy professionals, manage to be there to applaud it all.

Sarah's father Larry is an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. He takes turns with Ilene, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School, juggling commitments for Sarah and her brother Josh. They strive never to miss a shining moment. But it can be tricky, as Larry makes clear when he describes a hectic day last spring: "On Monday, both Sarah and Josh were playing sports, and Ilene couldn't be there. So I shot out of the office at 4, picked up Josh, took him to his baseball game, then went to Sarah's tennis match, then went to Josh's baseball game till 8. I had a talk to give in Toronto the next day, and I wasn't prepared. So I put my slides together at midnight and flew out at 9 a.m."

Not every parent has the flexibility to leave work at 4 and finish up late at night. Still, making the effort to be present for a child's victories and milestones is vitally important, says Robert Weintraub, headmaster at Brookline High, where Sarah is a student: "Parents must attend every event their child participates in--back-to-school night, plays, shows, games. The kids will say you don't need to come, but you do. It reinforces the importance of school." Just as important, he says, is keeping the day-to-day dialogue going, no matter how reluctant a child might seem. Teenagers, in particular, will seem to push the parent away. "Don't stop when your kid rejects you. Ask to see their papers and exams. The initial response to questions like 'What happened at school today?' may be 'Nothing.' You have to be persistent. School is a very important part of their lives."

Can any child be a good student? Assuming good health and normal intelligence, the answer is probably yes. A great student? Maybe not. Some kids seem to be born organized and focused. Like Mike Terry, they have tidy rooms with a designated place for everything. Like Sarah Seidman, they have long attention spans at a young age. "There's a strong correlation between a good student and things like time management and organization," notes Dan Walls, dean of admissions of Emory University in Atlanta. Kids blessed with these qualities may have a natural advantage over kids who have to struggle to keep order--although those who keep up the struggle will ultimately develop persistence, the most valuable trait a student can have.

For parents who despair of ever seeing an honor-roll mention, there is this bit of consolation from Arnold's valedictorian study. Conventionally good students tend to wind up as conventional successes. "I hate to use the word conformists," says Arnold of her high achievers, "but they were aware of and willing to deal with the rules of the system." Bill Gates was not a conventionally good student. Neither was Thomas Edison nor Ernest Hemingway nor most of the world's truly creative brains. But don't kid yourself either. It just isn't true that Einstein flunked out of math.

--Reported by Wendy Cole/Chicago, Emily Mitchell/Wichita, Megan Rutherford/New York and Sarah J.M. Tuff/Atlanta

Leadership is something WE just do!

December 15, 2006

2006 LEADERS of the Year

Susan McLester, Amy Poftak, and Mark Smith

Cindy Wilson-Hyde
Curriculum Technology Integrator
Gulliver Schools
Coral Gables, Florida

Every day at 6:30 a.m. Cindy Wilson-Hyde gets in her white Ford Explorer and drives along south Florida's tropical boulevards to Gulliver Schools. She arrives at the main campus, a lush 20-acre spread in Coral Gables, and starts her day quietly reading e-mails.

Yet for the past three years, Wilson-Hyde's influence at Gulliver has been anything but quiet. As the curriculum technology integrator for the independent school's pre-kindergarten through 8th grades, she has — through hard work and a knack for relating to teachers-transformed the school's relationship with technology. "A couple years ago we had teachers who could not turn on a computer," says Patricia Martello, Gulliver's lower school principal — an incongruous scenario for a school that spawned the cofounders of Facebook and the creator of the Firefox Web browser. "Now they're going gangbusters. They're making podcasts; they have Web sites."

Not long ago Wilson-Hyde had a different career altogether — as a dental hygienist. Inspired by her love of technology, and her experience volunteering for Miami-Dade Public Schools during her daughter's formative years, she went back to school five years ago for a master's in instructional technology. After interning at a local high school, she landed the position at Gulliver.

Wilson-Hyde says the dental and education fields aren't as different as one might think. "Being a clinician is all about relationships. You do education every single day, all day," she says. "People trust you if they feel a connection with you, if you listen to them."

Cindy Wilson-Hyde's efforts have led to teachers using Webcams to track student reading progress and more.

This ability to connect has made all the difference, says administrator Glenda Crawford. "It's the way she works with teachers. She supports them. She never says no," she says, citing Wilson-Hyde's one-to-one training model as instrumental in engaging staff with new technologies. The enviable model starts with an online survey asking teachers which two to three skills they want to work on. Wilson-Hyde then customizes training to meet individual needs, and then asks for feedback.

One area where Wilson-Hyde's training has paid off is with Gulliver's 1st grade teachers, who are using laptops and Webcams to record reading samples of their students at the beginning, middle, and end of the year. The videos, along with scanned writing samples, are placed in students' digital arts portfolios. Not only does the portfolio help document reading fluency, teachers are finding them to be a valuable tool at parent meetings. Next year Wilson-Hyde plans to expand the project to kindergarten students.

The benefits of Wilson-Hyde's personal touch can be seen in other areas. Pre-kindergarten teachers are using digital cameras to demonstrate the cocooning process. First-grade teachers who were once technology shy are developing video photo albums and uploading them to the school's online communication system. Third-grade teachers are recording audio writing prompts and posting them on their Web pages.

"I think education is on the cusp of changing dramatically from classroom learning to having the whole world as your classroom," she says. "We're not tied to a time and place any more." — Amy Poftak

CINDY WILSON-HYDE'S TOOLBOX

Audacity sound editor
http://audacity.sourceforge.net

Audio Enhancement classroom amplification systems
www.audioenhancement.com

Edline Web hosting and portal system
www.edline.com

Jackson Software GradeQuick
www.jacksonsoftware.com

Logitech notebook webcams
www.logitech.com

Microsoft Photo Story
www.microsoft.com

Sony Cybershot digital cameras
www.sony.com

SurveyMonkey.com
www.surveymonkey.com

It's About TIME in MICHIGAN!

JASON FULFORD AND PAUL SAHRE FOR TIME

Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006

Building a New Student in Michigan

How one state is re-engineering its schools for the new century
By SONJA STEPTOE

Throughout most of the 20th century, the stream of cars rolling off Michigan assembly lines created jobs with high wages and schools with low expectations. When even a kid who dropped out of school early could look forward to a cozy middle class living, mastering chemistry, geometry, or geography didn�t seem so important. But now, at the start of the 21st century, both the state�s leading industry and its school system are at a crossroads.

While the once innovative industry is struggling to find a new direction, the state�s schools have moved into the fast lane of educational reform. �The collapse of the auto industry, which also exploded the notion embedded in the DNA here that you can make a good living despite being a high school dropout, created a perfect storm for convincing everyone we needed to make changes,� says Michael Flanagan, Michigan�s superintendent of public instruction. For three months last fall a task force of state education officials, school superintendents, college deans and a Ford Motor Company executive pored over scholarly research on curriculum reform, borrowed ideas from private schools with strong college preparatory curricula and International Baccalaureate programs that infuse instruction with a global perspective. The panel also studied the education policies in countries such as Singapore, whose students routinely ace international proficiency exams. And the group consulted education chiefs from states that were early adopters of tougher standards, including Indiana, Oregon and Arkansas—all of which require four years of English and at least three years of math and science.

The goal was to craft rigorous learning standards that would give students the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in college and in the 21st century workplace. The group recommended that every Michigan student, whether college-bound or not, be required to complete four years of English and math; three years of science and social studies; two years of foreign language; one year of Phys Ed; one in a course covering visual, performing or applied arts, as well as an online course—not necessarily for credit—offered by Michigan�s web-based Virtual High School or another Internet instruction provider the meets state guidelines. As juniors, they should also take the state merit exam that, like the ACT, measures college readiness.

Meanwhile, the state board of education wanted to see elective classes that expose them to diverse cultures and international issues; explore the rights and obligations of citizenship; teach finance and business principles in depth; and challenge them to access, analyze and use information from multimedia sources. The coursework, state officials recommended, should also improve their critical-thinking, problem-solving and communication abilities through team projects. Last spring the legislature overwhelmingly approved the new graduation rules—all of which take effect with next fall�s freshman class. �They are among the most rigorous requirements in the country,� says Michael Cohen, president of the nonprofit education think tank, Achieve Inc. Some forward-thinking schools have already begun to incorporate the new approach. Here�s a look at how three Michigan schools are preparing their students for the challenges of the 21st century:

Henry Ford Academy

Showing kids how book-learning relates to the real world is a central tenet of the new thinking. That�s the chief reason the Henry Ford Academy, a nine-year old charter school with a racially and academically mixed student body selected by lottery, was located on the grounds of the 12-acre Henry Ford Museum and its 100-acre companion site, the Greenfield Village. The museum and village�s exhibits of antique vehicles, restored historic homesteads and artifacts bring academic concepts to life and serve as the bases for class projects. When eleventh graders study early-American economic systems, the village becomes their classroom for nine weeks. Exhibit curators often lead class discussions at the sawmills, weaving stations and tin-making shops inside the craftworks district, and on the lawns of Thomas Edison�s laboratory, the working soybean farm and antebellum tobacco plantation that dot the property.

In team projects, students get a hands-on feel for the low-tech production practices of the era by making cheese graters in the tin shop, and using looms to weave belts, under the supervision of museum staff. �It�s one thing to sit at your desk and read about economic development and have a teacher give you notes,� says Michael Trail, a senior who took the class last year. �It�s a totally different thing to go into the village and see it firsthand.�

Having a museum next door may make the process more fun, but it�s only one of the ways in which the Academy lowers the firewall between the classroom and the world beyond it. Students in an economics class put principles into practice with projects in which pairs of students pretend to be married couples living on a budget. �What good is it to teach them about math and economics at school if they still go home and spend $200 on sneakers or $2,000 on a stereo they can�t afford with interest payments of 28%?� asks Charles Dershimer, a faculty member. �It�s crucial for 21st century education that kids are able to see how classwork relates to what�s going on around them.�

In another example of life-skills training, the school is heeding calls from corporate leaders for employees who can work well with others. �Working in teams teaches you how to interact with others, and how to be more sociable,� says Lori Ismail, a junior who often collaborates with classmates to perform science experiments and solve trigonometry problems. �It�s important because if you�re going to work at a company you�re going to have to acknowledge and work with everyone around you.�

The heaviest dose of instruction with real-world relevance is the Academy�s innovative senior mastery process. The two-year seminar beginning in eleventh grade is both a tutorial on searching for a job and an exercise in self-exploration. Each student fills fat, white binders with biographies, personal mission statements, lists of life and career goals, electronic portfolios that include their lists of life and career goals and assorted essays in which they articulate and assess their own strengths, interests and ambitions. A boy who wants to be a mechanical engineer composed an essay titled �How To Be A Better Me,� outlining the steps he intends to take to �become successful in everything in life.� Through interviews with working professionals, consultations with career advisors, and Internet research on the qualifications, salary, and duties for a range of jobs, students weed through options and select a career. During a power-point presentation to classmates reporting on her career research, a girl explains that she�s attracted to counseling, despite the high burnout rate and meager staring salary, because �people need someone to talk to about their problems and I think I�m good at listening and helping.�

As a final step, they create electronic portfolios that include resumes and lists of colleges they would like to attend—along with the attendant admissions criteria—and interview with local employers to secure a senior-year internship in their chosen field. Michael Trail, the senior, is producing blueprints and 3-D models with set-design software as part of his job assisting the technical director of the Detroit Opera House this season. Even students who aren�t as computer savvy as Trail must successfully complete the course and fulfill all the other graduation requirements, in keeping with the policy of Academy principal Cora Christmas that no child will be left behind, held back, or put on a separate track.

To that end, the Academy embeds within its 20-week semesters 10-week remedial classes for students performing below grade level and offers previews of advanced classes for those who�ve surpassed their classmates. Christmas believes the strategy is a better way of keeping advanced students stimulated and helping struggling students retain what they learn than if they tried to absorb the lessons during disconnected summer sessions. �There�s not this thing where you just have to go along with everybody else,� says Ismail, who took geometry and calculus a semester early and, having exhausted the math curriculum, will study college calculus at a community college in spring. �Here, you can always find the pace that fits you.�

Farmington High School

John Barrett, the principal of Farmington High School, is a fervent disciple of the theories espoused in Thomas Friedman�s book, The World Is Flat, about vanishing U.S. economic supremacy on the now-level global playing field and he worries that complacent Americans are perilously close to sliding off the edge. He distributed copies of the book to teachers last spring and made it the sole topic for discussion at the first faculty meeting this fall. To build a less xenophobic student body, students are served a steady diet of internationally focused programs and projects.

A group of students from Lisa Sievert�s international affairs class organized a model U.N. where they debate the practical implications of such abstract concepts as sovereignty and self-determination in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Iraq War. Sievert says many of the insights they�re gathering extracurricularly while researching mock resolutions inform the class discussions, adding intellectual spice to the sessions she flavors with student-produced Power Point presentations, documentary screenings, as well as reading assignments from foreign affairs journals and memoirs of genocide survivors. Barrett required students to attend an on-campus debate on the Arab-Israeli conflict he organized between a Muslim cleric and a Jewish rabbi. In another assembly, Pakistani and Indian students explained the sources of ethnic tensions in the Kashmir region, and plans are underway for Farmington�s exchange students from Macedonia and Bulgaria to discuss the conflict in the Balkans. Although the school�s college placement record is impressive—77% of last year�s senior class enrolled in four-year colleges— Barrett says the Friedman book�s admonitions led to the decision this fall to �kick up the level of rigor� in the curriculum even more. �It becomes more apparent the deeper you get into the book that what we used to consider third world countries are now outdistancing us in terms of research and, more than anything, work ethic,� he says. �I want our kids to realize they�re not just competing with the kid next to them who didn�t do his homework. They�re up against a much (bigger group) that�s working very hard to take the job they want. �

Roosevelt High

While train tracks still course through the streets of Wyandotte, Michigan, many of the factories that for much of the 20th century made the city a hub from which cargo containers filled with paper, steel, tires, and chemicals were dispatched to consumers around the country and across the ocean are now shuttered. �The opportunity to go to college is about all the students here have now, besides low-paying service jobs,� says Mason Grahl, assistant principal at Roosevelt High, where traditionally far less than half the seniors go on to college. To change the mindset, Grahl and his boss, head principal Mary McFarlane, are administering tough love by enforcing the new state graduation requirements now. This year�s seniors are exempt, but for juniors, it means adding an extra math and science class to their schedules this year.

Some of those who say they aren�t planning to go to college consider the new rules an unfair burden. At a student assembly, McFarlane heard cries of �Why us?� when she announced the changes. Her response: �Because it�s the right thing to do.� Renee Bojanowski is a college-bound junior and honors student at Roosevelt. She says the grousing notwithstanding, the urgent need for a new attitude is beginning to sink in among members of the student body. When a university admissions director met with seniors recently and told them that they will need more than a diploma to qualify for the vast majority of desirable jobs, and showed them wage-rate charts, she reports, �it woke a lot of people up because it made them see that if they don�t get more education, they will earn a lot less money.�

For teachers whose lesson plans already are bloated with required content, it will be a challenge to cover the additional academic concepts the state is mandating along with the new graduation requirements. Chemistry teacher Tim Graham predicts the new content mandates in science and math will only exacerbate tensions between depth and breadth with which teachers must grapple. �Our (state proficiency test) scores show that we�re bringing our kids along in terms of learning to think critically,� he says. �We�re wondering if we can continue to do that while covering the broader spectrum of skills required by the new rules.� Schools could lobby the state to let them count the math and science concepts covered in such technical classes as architectural drawing (which is 90% geometry, Graham contends) and metals technology (which requires students to understand how varying levels of carbon content change the way steel reacts to being heated and cooled, for instance) to meet the new guidelines.

But that may be a long shot because currently many vo-tech teachers aren't state-certified as applied math and science instructors, according to Graham. "The issue will have to be dealt with eventually,� he says, �or we're going to have a hard time." Despite such challenges, Graham agrees with his principal that the stricter mandates are appropriate. �It�s going to be a fight initially and we might see the dropout rate climb a bit,� he predicts. �But this is about having our students ready for where they want to go in life, with the ability to work in teams, reach conclusions, make connections, think logically and problem-solve, because those are the essential skills for the workplace now.�

NORTHWESTERN HIGH SCHOOL (AIM Program)

*Achievement In Motion "Going Digital" Progress Report 2007 (Coming Soon)

Really, Really, BEGIN with the END in MIND!

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CLOSING THE EXPECTATIONS GAP REPORT 2006
http://www.achieve.org/files/50-statepub-06.pdf

Published: February 22, 2006

States Acting to Raise Bar on H.S. Skills

Push to Boost Readiness Taking Hold, Survey Finds

By Lynn Olson

States are moving to close the gap between high school preparation and college and workforce readiness, but momentum is far greater in some policy areas than in others, a 50-state survey released this week shows.

At the National Education Summit on High Schools, held a year ago, state governors agreed to a broad set of actions needed to address the gap. Those include raising graduation requirements and academic standards, building stronger data and measurement systems, better preparing teachers, redesigning high schools structurally and academically, and holding both the K-12 and postsecondary systems accountable for results. ("High Schools in Limelight for Summit," Feb. 23, 2005)

For More Info

"Closing the Expectations Gap 2006: An Annual 50-State Progress Report on the Alignment of High School Policies With the Demands of College and Work" is posted by Achieve Inc.

Since then, according to the report by the Washington-based Achieve Inc., which co-sponsored the summit with the National Governors Association, every state, plus Puerto Rico, has signed an NGA compact to improve data on high school graduation rates by agreeing to use a common method.

Twenty-six states, the report found, are taking part in a $23.6 million grant program through the NGA to support governor-led initiatives to improve high schools. And 10 national groups have launched the Data Quality Campaign to provide better information to state leaders on building high-quality data systems.

In addition, 22 states have joined with Achieve to form the American Diploma Project Network, which is committed to aligning high school standards, assessments, graduation requirements, and data and accountability systems with the demands of college and the workplace.

“The urgency to fix America’ s high schools has not dissipated,” said Dane Linn, the director of the NGA’s education division. “Governors clearly see high school redesign as a critical component to their states being economically competitive.”

The survey focuses on a subset of policies related to the diploma project’s work. It found that more than two-thirds of the states, for example, are moving to anchor their high school standards in the skills needed for college and work. But, so far, only five states—California, Indiana, New York, Nebraska, and Wyoming—report that they have actually completed that process, including verification from business and higher education officials that the standards reflect their skill demands.

“A breakthrough that we see occurring now in states is the more active involvement of the postsecondary community in all of this,” said Matthew Gandal, the executive vice president of Achieve, a nonprofit organization created by governors and business leaders to promote standards-based education.

Bolstering Readiness

A growing number of states have adopted policies to ensure that students graduate from college and are ready for the workplace.

*Click image to see the full chart

SOURCE: Achieve Inc.

“In our view, the expectations gap cannot be closed by high schools alone,” he said. “It’s important for the postsecondary community to step up to the plate, and we’re beginning to see that.”

Mr. Linn of the NGA noted that 29 states now have some semblance of a council in place to bring together policymakers from prekindergarten through postsecondary education, which is one of the non-negotiable elements for states to receive grants under the NGA’s High School Honors States grants program. “It’s clear that governors are taking a lead role in making sure that postsecondary education doesn’t escape responsibility for the high school agenda,” he said.

Many states also plan to require that all high school students complete a college- and work-ready curriculum that includes four years each of rigorous English and mathematics through at least Algebra 2. Since the summit, six states—Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, Oklahoma, and South Dakota—have adopted such graduation requirements, compared with just Arkansas and Texas before the summit.

Another 12 states report that they plan to put such requirements in place for all students in the future. Seven more states have raised their graduation requirements since the summit, although not to the level recommended by Achieve.

Less Activity on Tests

A federal study released last week shows that taking an intensive academic curriculum in high school is one of the best predictors of whether students ultimately earn a bachelor’s degree. But it warns that simply increasing the number of credits in the key subjects that students need to graduate is not enough. States also need, it says, to pay attention to the actual content of high school courses and how well it aligns with postsecondary expectations.

See Also

Read the related story, “H.S. Courses Seen as Disconnected From College Demands.”

“As states raise course requirements,” the Achieve report advises, “they will need to put safeguards in place to ensure that the content of courses taught in high schools is consistently rigorous across the state, and that schools are not watering down those courses as more students are required to take them.”

The Achieve survey found far less activity on the testing front. Few states have current high school tests that are rigorous enough to signal whether students are ready for college or work, according to Achieve.

What’s more, few states report devising new 12th grade assessments that could provide such information. “As a result,” Achieve says, “colleges largely ignore the results of those tests and instead administer their own admissions and placement tests,” sending mixed messages to students, parents, and teachers.

The survey found that only six states—California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, and Texas—have state high school tests that are now used for college-admissions or -placement decisions. Eight additional states are pursuing that option.

The lack of activity is not surprising, Mr. Gandal said. “First things first: The right order of events is to define the expectations and get those right,” he said, “before you know what you want to measure through an assessment.”

Another eight states have tied college scholarships or financial aid to student performance on high school exams, and four others plan to establish such financial incentives.

The survey also found few efforts to hold either high schools or postsecondary institutions accountable for whether students make a smooth transition from one level of education to the next.

Only Oklahoma, for example, reports holding high schools responsible for the percent of graduates who require remedial instruction in college by including college remediation rates as one component of the state’s index used to judge high schools and K-12 districts. Fewer than half the states say that college remediation rates are reported publicly.

Most states, Mr. Gandal said, are still trying to devise a more accurate graduation rate. “Only a few have really begun to build in college and work readiness as an accountability goal,” he said. “We think that will pick up, but the pace won’t be nearly as fast as in some of these other areas.”

While many states are working on data systems that would let them track individual student progress from prekindergarten through postsecondary education, only three—Florida, Louisiana, and Texas—say they have such systems in place.

Work on Data

An additional 31 states say they are in the process of creating a pre-K-16 data system, or of linking their existing K-12 and higher education data systems. But the report cautions that in many states the pace of such initiatives is slow or nonexistent. The U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences has awarded $52.8 million in grants to 14 states to help with such efforts.

Such data systems, along with more rigorous high school tests, should help states make college and work readiness a key factor in high school accountability systems, the Achieve report says.

Note: The Web version of this story includes figures updated from the original print version.

BEGIN With the END in MIND!

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Published: September 20, 2006

Prominent Teacher-Educator Assails Field, Suggests New Accrediting Body in Report

But others finding fault with Levine’s conclusions, methodology.

By Vaishali Honawar

In a new study that has already raised some hackles, a noted expert on teacher education paints the field as a troubled one in which a majority of aspiring teachers are educated in low-quality programs that do not sufficiently prepare them for the classroom.

For More Info

"Educating School Teachers" is posted by the Education Schools Project.

In his 140-page report, which includes surveys of alumni, school principals, and deans of teacher-training institutions, as well as case studies of 28 programs that cover the wide spectrum of teacher education, Arthur E. Levine, the former president of Teachers College, Columbia University, describes such programs as “unruly and chaotic” Wild West towns that lack a standard approach to preparing teachers.

Universities that produce a majority of teacher graduates have lower admission standards, professors with lesser credentials, and fewer resources, and they produce graduates who are less effective in the classroom, the report asserts.

—File Photo by Emile Wamsteker for Education Week

Further, the debate over whether teaching is a profession or a craft has left programs unsure about whether they should become professional schools or remain grounded in the academic world of arts and sciences.

Arthur E. Levine

AGE: 58

POSITION: President, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation

EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in biology, Brandeis University; Ph.D., in sociology and higher education, State University of New York at Buffalo

PREVIOUS POSTS:
• President and professor of education, Teachers College, Columbia University
• Chairman, higher education program; chairman, Institute for Educational Management; senior lecturer, Harvard University graduate school of education
• President, Bradford College; senior fellow, Carnegie Foundation and Carnegie Council for Policy Studies in Higher Education

BOOKS:
• When Hope and Fear Collide: A Portrait of Today’s College Student (with Jeanette S. Cureton);
• Beating the Odds: How the Poor Get to College (with Jana Nidiffer);
• Higher Learning in America;
• Shaping Higher Education’s Future;
• When Dreams and Heroes Died: A Portrait of Today’s College Students;
• Handbook on Undergraduate Curriculum;
• Quest for Common Learning (with Ernest Boyer);
• Opportunity in Adversity (with Janice Green);
• Why Innovation Fails

RESEARCH AREAS: Increasing access to higher education and improving equity in the schools

HONORS AND AWARDS:
• Guggenheim Fellowship;
• Carnegie Fellowship;
• American Council on Education’s “Book of the Year” award for Reform of Undergraduate Education;
• Educational Press Association’s annual award for writing (three times);
• named “One of the Most Outstanding Leaders in the Academic Community,” Change magazine, 1998;
• Academic Leadership Award, Council of Independent Colleges;
• Educator of the Year Award, Phi Delta Kappa;
• Educator of the Year Award, Urban College, Boston

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS: Board member, Blackboard Inc., DePaul University, and All Kinds of Minds; member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

SOURCES: Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation; Arthur E. Levine

Pointing to the proliferation of alternative teacher-preparation programs, the report warns: “There is a real danger that if we do not clean our own house, America’s university-based teacher education programs will disappear.”

Even before its official release date of Sept. 18, the report had stirred up opposition among those responsible for policing quality in teacher education with a recommendation to improve quality control through a complete redesign of the system used to accredit teacher programs.

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, a Washington-based group that accredits more than half the 1,200 programs in the nation, called the report “contradictory.”

Arthur E. Wise, its president, also criticized the report’s methodology and the fact that it has not been peer-reviewed. “Many of the major points in the report are supported by anecdotes,” he said. “In a scholarly work based on fieldwork, one would expect to see richer connections drawn between the conclusions in the report and actual data that was gathered.”

Mr. Levine, who is now the president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in Princeton, N.J., dismissed the criticism, saying the report drew no conclusions that did not flow from findings. Putting the report together was a lengthy and detailed process that took more than two years, he said, and included several surveys as well as the case studies, for which academics and retired or freelance education journalists conducted site visits at each school.

Mr. Levine said he used the journalists because he wanted someone who could ask hard questions and because a report based entirely on the findings of educators could appear biased. Alvin Sanoff, a former U.S. News & World Report assistant managing editor who worked on the magazine’s annual college-rankings project, served as project manager for Mr. Levine’s study.

‘Exemplary’ Programs

The report is the second in a series of four Mr. Levine is preparing on the schools of education, where the majority of school leaders, teachers, and scholars are educated. His last report was a damning assessment of the programs that prepare most of the nation’s superintendents and principals. ("Study Blasts Leadership Preparation," March 16, 2005.)

Remaking Teacher Education

In his report, Arthur E. Levine recommends a number of ways to improve the preparation of aspiring teachers.

• Transform education schools from ivory towers into professional schools focused on classroom practice.

• Focus on student achievement as the primary measure of teacher education program success.

• Rebuild teacher education programs around the skills and knowledge that promote classroom learning; make five-year teacher education programs the norm.

• Establish effective mechanisms for teacher education quality control.

• Close failing teacher education programs, strengthen promising ones, and expand excellent ones by creating incentives for outstanding students and career-changers to enter teacher education at doctoral universities.

SOURCE: “Educating School Teachers”

Mr. Levine said in an interview that despite the depressing state, he sees hope for teacher education. “The condition of teacher education is better than the conditions found in leadership programs,” he said. “There were no models in the country for school leadership.”

The report highlights four programs as “exemplary” and worthy of emulation by others—models that he says have embraced practice and practitioners, and have received the support of their universities. A quarter of the sites visited could be described as strong.

One of the exemplary programs is at Alverno College, a baccalaureate general college in Milwaukee and an open-admissions school, where entering students often come unprepared.

While the college requires entrants to the teacher school to pass tests, including the Praxis I, the faculty and staff are willing to work with highly motivated students who fail the exams the first time round. Although small, the college is one of the five top feeder institutions for the Milwaukee public schools, and its graduates are highly rated by principals. Five years after graduation, 85 percent of graduates are still teaching.

Others cited by the report as exemplary are Emporia State University in Kansas, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and Stanford University.

“Individually and collectively, [these programs] show how high the quality of teacher education can be,” the report says. “Their programs reflect the needs of today’s schools and students; and they tie the success of their programs to student learning. … They integrate and give appropriate balance to academic and clinical education.”

“What they say is, any school in the country and any type of institution can create a strong teacher education program,” Mr. Levine said.

But the overall picture he paints is not a cheerful one, of programs that teach outdated curricula and have failed to keep pace with demographics, technology, global competition, and pressures to raise student achievement.

Meanwhile, universities have exacerbated the situation by continuing to treat teacher-preparation programs as “cash cows,” leading them to set low admission and graduation standards for their students, Mr. Levine contends.

Down on NCATE

One of the report’s more controversial elements is its criticism of the low bar set by quality-control mechanisms for schools of education by states and by NCATE. The report does not discuss the only other accrediting body in the nation, the Teacher Education Accreditation Council, saying it is too new and small.

Current quality-control requirements, Mr. Levine says, are procedural rather than substantive. Calling current notions of quality “misplaced and dated,” the report recommends the creation of a new accrediting mechanism, to be named the National Council for the Accreditation of Schools of Education. The report says the most promising approach to redesigning accreditation could be for a neutral party that has worked on teacher education reform to form a blue-ribbon panel for the purpose of redesigning accreditation.

Among the flaws of NCATE, according to the report, is that elite institutions are less likely than others to seek its accreditation, with the result that “teacher education accrediting policy and standards are more likely to reflect the practices of the average or subpar programs rather than the outstanding ones.”

As an example of poor quality-control practices, the report points to an unnamed public university that it says admits and graduates poorly prepared students, has a weak curriculum, and low course quality. Despite those problems, it says, the university has received the nod from both its state and NCATE.

Sharon P. Robinson, the president of the Washington-based American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, or AACTE, a group that represents about 750 colleges of education and that is a member institution of NCATE, called the recommendation for redesigning accreditation “over the top.”

“NCATE has given every indication that it is capable of reforming and changing and implementing and embracing new ideas and innovation, so I don’t understand the evidence that would put forth such a dramatic recommendation,” she said.

In recent years, for example, the accrediting body has switched to a performance-based system for judging a program’s effectiveness.

Mr. Wise of NCATE said the report, while it criticizes his organization, also affirms the group’s standards and procedures. Moreover, he said, the nine criteria used by the report to evaluate education schools bear a strong resemblance to NCATE standards.

The NCATE president also called Mr. Levine’s criticism of universities that produce a majority of teacher graduates as having low standards and less qualified faculties as “implicit elitism.”

“We might all wish that elite institutions would produce a more significant share of America’s teachers, but given the current economics of higher education and the teaching profession, that has never occurred in the past, nor does it appear likely to happen any time in the foreseeable future,” Mr. Wise said. Teacher education, he added, has not been an important part of the mission of some top-ranked institutions.

The four programs Mr. Levine highlights as being among the best are all NCATE-accredited.

“NCATE is a lot of work, but it has been nothing but a good experience for us,” said Phil Bennett, the interim dean of the Teachers’ College at Emporia State University. NCATE guidelines have helped Emporia State adhere to the highest standards in teacher education, he said. “When you mention standards, [NCATE] is indeed the standard for us.”

Attracting Attention

Both NCATE and AACTE officials acknowledge that Mr. Levine makes some conclusions that are on target.

Mr. Wise applauded some of the report’s recommendations to improve teacher-training programs, including focusing on student achievement and transforming schools from ivory towers into professional schools focused on classroom practice. He said his group has been working assiduously over the past decade to move those goals forward.

“Art [Levine] delved into a number of areas that help us understand why our ambitions have not been realized,” said Ms. Robinson of AACTE. Among other measures, she agrees that teacher education needs to be financed better so it can be restructured as a profession, much like medicine or engineering.

Deborah Loewenberg-Ball, the dean of the school of education at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said the report is important because even though programs have for a long time been in agreement that teacher education needs to be improved radically, they have been unable to find support on a national level. “A report like this can help attract the nation’s policymakers to the fact that if we want quality schools, teacher education has to be at top of our agenda,” she said.

Universities, the report says, have an obligation to evaluate the quality of their teacher education programs. It proposes that universities establish timetables of no more than five years for closing poor programs and strengthening strong ones. If universities fail to do so, states should step in.

“The focus at many universities has been more on quantity and generating dollars rather than quality,” Mr. Levine said. “Expectations are so low on the part of the central administration that they haven’t made the effort to push education schools to raise the quality of teacher education programs.”

The report also calls for rebuilding teacher education programs around the skills and knowledge that promote classroom learning, and making five-year programs the norm.

It asks states to improve funding for teacher salaries, including tying salary scales to teacher qualifications and performance to reward the best teachers and keep them in classrooms.

Announcing START 2007 Collabulary

SMART Signs for SMART MInds!

Loudoun School System Recognized for Technology Initiatives

By Arianne Aryanpur
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 24, 2006; LZ01

Ten years ago, the Loudoun County school system was "limping along" when it came to equipping students with the latest technology, said Assistant Superintendent Sharon D. Ackerman. So school officials pushed up their sleeves and drafted a plan to invest $22 million in technology improvements.

That plan, put before voters in a 1996 bond referendum, called for four computers in every classroom, one computer lab in all elementary schools and four to five computer labs in all middle and high schools. The goal was realized 18 months later, and ever since, Loudoun's public school system has been a leader in introducing the latest technology into classrooms, Ackerman said.

That record recently drew national recognition. Last month, Loudoun was one of three school districts in the nation to win the National School Boards Association's Technology Salute District award. In March, a group of national educators will visit Loudoun and the two other districts -- the Kyrene school district in Tempe, Ariz., and the Kokomo-Center Consolidated School Corp. in Kokomo, Ind. -- to see how those jurisdictions have used technology to enhance learning.

One advanced-technology tool that Loudoun uses is the SMART Board -- a touch-screen white board that eliminates the traditional chalk and erasers associated with teaching. A teacher writes on the screen with a finger, and whatever is written is stored electronically. Students can retrieve the information later by visiting the teacher's Web site.

Betty Korte, a math teacher at Stone Bridge High School, said the technology has made it easier to teach her ninth- and 10th-grade students.

"In math, where a lot of abstract concepts need to be understood, I can use a lot of the features to make it more real for the kids," Korte said. "I've been able to see the difference in their ability to understand these concepts before and after using the tool. In my mind, there's just no comparison."

Since adopting the technology last year, Loudoun has equipped each of its 45 schools with one or two SMART Boards. Stone Bridge has 12, one in every math classroom, and the Academy of Science at Dominion High School has one in every classroom. The school system aims to have a SMART Board in every classroom by 2010, said Preston Coppels, the system's director of instructional services.

"It's probably the most explosive technology in education," he said.

In citing Loudoun for the award, the national association noted the district's offering of online courses, which the county began providing five years ago. Through a partnership with George Mason University and the school systems in Stafford and Warren counties, students who otherwise can't complete classes -- because of long-term illness or lack of time in their schedules -- may register for online classes hosted by the GMU Web site.

The classes are self-taught, but teachers from Loudoun, Stafford and Warren counties answer questions via e-mail and chat. Coppels said that the pass rate for online courses has been exceptionally high and that students have given the service high marks.

The association also cited Loudoun's plans to establish next year a comprehensive online database of student information, including grades and standardized-test results, that will put information about each student at a teacher's fingertips.

Ackerman said the national recognition demonstrates Loudoun's ability to keep itself current with technological advances. And the school system will always have its eye on the next big thing, she said.

"I really think wireless is the future," she said. "The ability to roll the computers in . . . you don't eat up a whole room with a permanent computer lab, and every student can have them on their desks. We are looking in the future to go wireless."

A Holiday Wish for All of You!

A Christmas Canon by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra

http://www.trans-siberian.com/multimedia/video.shtml

Lyrics:

Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas

The hope that he brings
The hope that he brings
The hope that he brings
The hope that he brings

This night
We pray
Our lives
Will show

This dream
He had
Each child
Still knows

We are waiting
We have not forgotten

On this night
On this night
On this very Christmas night

This "Digital Forum" Requires Participation!

The "DIGITAL TICKET" for the Train-Ride to 21st Century Learning!

ALL ABOARD! The "little train" that could!

Yokomi Elementary School Educates Fresno ’s Littlest Scientists

Six-year-olds Kellyn and Julissa hunch over a bottle containing a mysterious liquid, examining it with a flashlight. These students at Akira Yokomi Elementary School in Fresno, California, may only be in first grade, but they already understand how to use words like “transparent” and “opaque” to discuss the properties of liquid. Down the hall, sixth grade students dressed in white laboratory coats peer through their goggles into microscopes, type their observations into laptop computers, and project their findings onto interactive whiteboards. With its high-tech classrooms, hands-on curriculum, and intense focus on science and preparing students for success in the 21st century, Yokomi is not an average elementary school.

Yokomi was born out of a clarion call issued in a report on economic development, education, and workforce issues in 2005 by the Fresno County Grand Jury. The report cited the need for Fresno students to receive additional educational opportunities to build technological literacy and practice skills in applied science and technology fields. In August 2005, Yokomi opened in downtown Fresno as a way of answering this call.

Breaking the Cycle of Underachievement

The new, two-story technology-infused building stands out against the backdrop of a community that was identified in 2005 as having the highest concentration of poverty in the United States by the Washington, DC-based nonprofit Brookings Institution. The school currently serves a population of 660 students in kindergarten through sixth grade who are 67 percent Hispanic, 12 percent African American, 12 percent Asian, eight percent white, and less than one percent Filipino, Pacific Islander, and American Indian or Alaska Native. More than 70 percent of Yokomi students are from families who do not speak English as their primary language, and 42 percent are designated as English language learners (ELLs). As a magnet school, Yokomi pulls students from across local districts, but over half live in the low-income neighborhood surrounding the school.

Studies show that certain family risk factors, such as poverty or the language spoken in the home, present challenges to students’ educational achievement and progress. For example, The Condition of Education 2006 from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) revealed that in 2005, fourth grade students in the highest poverty public schools scored lower on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Mathematics Assessment than their peers in the lowest poverty public schools. The same report also showed that the number of school-age children who spoke a language other than English at home and who spoke English with difficulty increased between 1979 and 2004.

With the challenges that face low-income and ELL students in mind, Yokomi works to provide enriching educational opportunities and extra support to students so that regardless of their socio-economic status or native language, all may experience academic success. This approach appears to be paying off since, in its first year of operation, Yokomi met all targets for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), and results from the 2006 California Standard Tests (CSTs) show that fourth grade students are reaching district performance goals in English language arts and surpassing those goals in mathematics.

A Technology-Infused Environment

Yokomi administrators and teachers believe that, with the support of appropriate technology and engaging instruction, all students – from those who may be at risk for academic failure to those who are performing above grade level – can master key concepts in core subjects and perform to high levels. At Yokomi, technology does not mean a row of dusty computers in the back of a classroom with outdated software and slow dial-up modems. Rather, technology means digital projectors, scanners, and wireless slates that are used to enhance the curriculum, provide assistance to students who may need extra help, and get teachers excited about teaching and students passionate about learning.

During a recent visit to Fresno, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement Morgan Brown took a tour of Yokomi and noted, “This is an amazing school to walk into. The concept of integrating technology and science into a school curriculum is not unusual, but it usually does not happen for students until they are in middle or high school.”

Yokomi’s classrooms are equipped with at least one laptop computer, a digital projector, and document cameras. Students in kindergarten through second grade learn basic keyboarding skills on special word-processing laptops, while older students use traditional laptops as learning tools. Additionally, teachers wear wireless microphones that amplify their voices through surround-sound systems so students are able to clearly hear lesson instructions. Possibly the most frequently used piece of classroom equipment is the Smart Board. This interactive whiteboard looks much like a traditional mounted writing surface, but the touch-sensitive display enables teachers and students to access and control computer and multimedia applications, the Internet, CD-ROMs, and DVDs with their fingertips. The Smart Board may be connected to a computer and projector so that it functions as a giant computer screen. Teachers and students can write on the whiteboard with digital “ink” and save their work for future study or review.

Yokomi’s principal, Steve Gonzales, notes, “Every one of our teachers, from kindergarten through sixth grade, has embraced this technology wholeheartedly. And parents say that their children come home from school excited about what they’ve just learned, largely due to the technology-infused lessons.”

Although Yokomi has a technology and science theme, all academic subjects are taught with the same level of rigor, based on state standards. Students participate in English language arts, reading, mathematics, science, history, and social studies, as well as art and music classes. As a matter of fact, music has a special place in the Yokomi curriculum based on research that has indicated a powerful connection between the subject and the development of key cognitive skills. Students engage in a specialized music curriculum that combines the use of musical instruments and computers so that students may make music and observe how it relates to other disciplines, such as mathematics.

Science: The Yokomi Way

Science instruction occurs daily and is designed to improve students’ literacy levels while enhancing their inquiry and problem-solving skills. Students in kindergarten through third grade spend about 70 minutes each day studying and exploring science concepts, and students in fourth through sixth grade spend about 120 minutes working with the subject. For half of this time, students learn in specially designed elementary science laboratories that are fitted with child-sized furniture and equipment. In addition to laboratory work, every day for 45 to 60 minutes, students participate in science-based literacy instruction where they learn key vocabulary terms, read scientific journals and articles, and practice writing. For the first time this year, the school also is instituting the Lego Engineering curriculum so that students may apply skills they learn in science and mathematics to build their own robots.

The overall science curriculum at Yokomi is based on Harcourt Science and the Full Option Science System (FOSS), the latter of which was developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkley. FOSS is a research-based science curriculum for students in kindergarten through eighth grade and an ongoing research project. The project began over 20 years ago, and its development continues to be shaped by advances in the understanding of how children think and learn. The Fresno Unified School District (FUSD) has been implementing FOSS in its classrooms since 1993, with teachers receiving ongoing training.

FOSS has three goals: 1.) to promote scientific literacy by providing all students with science experiences that are grade-level appropriate and that serve as a foundation for more advanced ideas; 2.) to be instructionally efficient by providing teachers with a complete, easy-to-use science program; and 3.) to promote systemic reform by providing real experiences for students that reflect National Science Education Standards.

The FOSS kindergarten through sixth grade program used at Yokomi consists of 26 modules in scientific reasoning and technology, and life , physical , and earth sciences. Twice per year, Yokomi students create science fair projects that are based on one of the FOSS modules they have studied. The inaugural science fair last year focused on physical science using modules such as Solar Energy, Magnetism and Electricity, and Solids and Liquids. As a testament to how dedicated the community and parents are to Yokomi, over 500 family and community members attended the fair.

Microscopes and Computers are Great, but Parents are Key

In fact, the school was created with parents in mind. Parents who work near Yokomi in the downtown area are offered priority in the school’s application and lottery processes so that they are closer to their children and freer to visit the school during the day. Parents also are involved with the daily operations at Yokomi. For example, the School Site Council and English Language Learner Committee, which prepare the budget and programming for the school, are open to families. Also, the Student Study Team (SST), which assists students who may be experiencing academic, behavioral, or emotional issues, has parents actively participate in meetings. Parents interact with resource specialist teachers, classroom teachers, the principal, and often the school psychologist and speech therapist to determine how best to support individual students.

With its strong support network for students and innovative curriculum, Akira Yokomi Elementary School is giving Fresno ’s littlest scientists a strong academic foundation that will assist them in their pursuit of higher education and work in the 21 st century. Yokomi graduates are particularly well prepared to enroll in the science/medical middle and high school choices that FUSD offers, such as Fort Miller Medical Careers Academy , Sequoia Middle, Duncan Polytechnical High School , and the Sunnyside High School Doctors’ Academy (see Innovator, July 18, 2005). A Magnet Schools Assistance Program grant from the Office of Innovation and Improvement at the U.S. Department of Education helped create Yokomi – the only FUSD elementary school with a science focus, and the most technologically advanced school in Central California.

Note: The featured program is innovative; however, it does not yet have evidence of effectiveness from a rigorous evaluation.

Resources

• Akira Yokomi Elementary School
• Magnet Schools Assistance Program