Saturday, December 29, 2007
The DIGITAL GENIE is OUT of the BOTTLE!
Friends and Colleagues:
Please visit the blog-site Students 2.0 http://students2oh.org/ and witness the beginning of something extraordinary......the World of Education as WE knew it will never quite be the same. AND this is a GREAT THING!
Thursday, December 27, 2007
From the Trenches
« The Kids Are Alright | Main | Come Eavesdrop on Some Great Conversations! »
It's the Technology, Stupid...
OK, I don't even let my own kids use the word "stupid" around the house (if my 9-year old says that someone used the "s"-word, she means "stupid"), but for those of us who remember the 1992 presidential campaign, the phrase reminds us of the importance of focusing on what really matters.
For the last year or two, I've been in an internal dilemma over the importance of technology versus pedagogy, and I think I've just reached a breaking point. There is just no question in my mind now that we are witnessing the initial phases of a social, cultural, and scientific change that will rival--and likely eclipse--the advent of the printing press. And it is not because of the pedagogy. While this change confirms some core beliefs that many of us have with regard to teaching and learning, and reopens the door to implementing them, the cause of this dramatic change is technological, specifically the read/write Web (or Web 2.0). It is the use of the Web as a contributor as much as a consumer of information.
Last week I was in Denver, attending a KnowledgeWorks Foundation small-group brainstorm "Re-imagining Teaching for the Future." Through a series of exercises intended to construct scenarios about future forces that would affect the roles of teachers, we tried to imagine what teaching and learning will be like in 10 - 15 years. I suggested that the depth of integration of technology into formal education would be a significant factor in teachers' roles, but was told that in this particular kind of scenario building, that technology is almost never considered a critical force, because it can be assumed it will be adopted.
I beg to differ. I'm not sure we can make that assumption. Mike Huffman from Indiana calculated that his state had spent a billion dollars on computer technology over ten years, with the less-that-stunning result that each student had access to a computer for 35 minutes a week. Using a bottom-line approach to computing, with the goal of actual classroom and curricular integration, Mike and his colleague Laura Taylor have been helping to provide low-cost immersive computing in Indiana--but I get the feeling they still fight every day to keep their program. Our inability in our own small worlds to see the larger picture of dramatic change taking place because of the Internet and the read/write Web threatens to keep us on a path of continuing to see computers as an accessory in the classroom. I'm personally not convinced that schools are ready to adopt the computer as the new learning medium. They should, however, and the longer it takes us to recognize this important reality, the more we will wonder why we didn't act sooner.
I'm unsuccessfully trying to remind myself to be patient. Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of the blog (see CelebrateBlogging.com). It's actually the 10th anniversary of the word "weblog," as there have been forms of communication that were blog-like that preceded that day in 1997 when Jorn Barger coined the word. However, I think we can all agree that the blog has only recently burst upon our collective consciousness, and many of the other Web 2.0 tools can only be categorized as being in their infancy. But for anyone participating in Twitter, or Ning Networks, or any of a hundred other social technologies that create dialog and conversation, there is an amazing sense that we are in the middle of something of huge human significance. Ten years may not be that long, but if we have to go through ten more years of debating the value of computers in education, we're in trouble.
Yesterday I interviewed Lindsea (16), Sean (16), and Kevin (17), three of the youth bloggers who have started Students 2.0 (see David Jakes recent post). Sean was in Scotland, Lindsea in Hawaii, and Kevin in Illinois--all on Skype. I've posted the 25 minute interview on my EdTechLive.com site (along with a previous one by "Arthus" that generated quite a comment firestorm at InfiniteThinking.org), and it's well worth the listen; but here I'm fascinated by the role of technology, in this case, in promoting student voices and their perspective on education.
From Sean: "What's happened over the past few years, and in society, with technology and the web becoming a lot more important, I'd say that the stuff I'm doing at home [rather than at school] is right now a bit more relevant, in terms of the skills I will need later in life.... At the stage at which we are at school, I would say that we are not dumb, we've matured a bit, and I think we should have some form of say in what's happening... "
From Kevin: "It's an interesting model, the way school continues to operate, as opposed to the infinitely more learning that we can do outside of the classroom... I think that technology is a very important part of education today, and because of that the shift from the traditional student-teacher model is creating a whole bunch of new possibilities. The web is not the only method by which that will happen, but it is a very important one as well... At the core of everything else, all the technology usage, it's all about creating learners, not just students who are able to interpret the facts that the teachers just preach to them in the classroom... There are 300 - 400 teachers in my school district, maybe only a a handful, I can probably count on one hand, who actually read blogs, let alone write them." -Kevin, 17 years old, Illinois, USA
(Lindsea had less to say because she had to leave the interview early to get to class. She was on a world-wide Skype interview from her computer at school, cool as a cucumber, with all of the noise of a school campus in the background.)
Kids like Kevin and Lindsea and Sean are flying metaphorical jet planes overhead, while we're largely using computers in schools as the equivalent of earth-bound tricycles. And then we're wondering why the computer hasn't transformed or improved education. As Connie Weber has written about an encounter with another teacher in an amazing series of notes about the evolution of her homeroom class, "I got the feeling she thinks 'computers' are a 'subject' and that there should be a lesson on 'computer use' with a beginning, a middle, and an end, then perhaps a test on topic coverage. Oh dear." (Connie's candid notes about her journey into a new paradigm of teaching that started with a social network for her class are on my must-read list for anyone interested in the future of education and learning.)
For some reason that my wife has never understood, I saved every paper I wrote in high school and college. They are still in a box in my attic. "Why?" my wife keeps asking. In my heart, I think I know why. Because I had something significant to say, and I could never bear to throw them away because I never really felt that what I had to say was heard. (Chalk one up to profound insights while blogging.) Most of them only had one other reader than me: my teacher at the time. When our youth write today, their audience can be so much broader and so much more real. It may not be a huge audience, but even if it's a few others scattered around the country or the globe, their writing is much more about communicating effectively with others than mine was. As content producers as well as consumers, their relationship with information is so much richer than mine ever was at their age. I don't want my children to be attic-box writers. I want them passionately, actively engaged in learning and communicating--like they are more and more in their use of the Web, which takes place largely outside of any formal educational setting.
Do I feel shy about advocating increased use of technology in education because of curricular, administrative, teaching, safety, and financial impediments to adoption? Yes, a little. But when I re-frame the context, and ask if I am willing to devote my passion and energy to a complete rethinking of education in light of the impending read/write renaissance brought about by the Internet, it's an unqualified yes. Bring on the revolution.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
SHOCKING!
Future School: Reshaping Learning from the Ground Up
Alvin Toffler tells us what's wrong -- and right -- with public education.
by James Daly
published 1/24/2007
Forty years after he and his wife Heidi set the world alight with Future Shock, Alvin Toffler remains a tough assessor of our nation's social and technological prospects. Though he's best known for his work discussing the myriad ramifications of the digital revolution, he also loves to speak about the education system that is shaping the hearts and minds of America's future. We met with him near his office in Los Angeles, where the celebrated septuagenarian remains a clear and radical thinker.
Credit: Getty Images
You've been writing about our educational system for decades. What's the most pressing need in public education right now?
Shut down the public education system.
That's pretty radical.
I'm roughly quoting [Microsoft chairman] Bill Gates, who said, "We don't need to reform the system; we need to replace the system."
Why not just readjust what we have in place now? Do we really need to start from the ground up?
We should be thinking from the ground up. That's different from changing everything. However, we first have to understand how we got the education system that we now have. Teachers are wonderful, and there are hundreds of thousands of them who are creative and terrific, but they are operating in a system that is completely out of time. It is a system designed to produce industrial workers.
Let's look back at the history of public education in the United States. You have to go back a little over a century. For many years, there was a debate about whether we should even have public education. Some parents wanted kids to go to school and get an education; others said, "We can't afford that. We need them to work. They have to work in the field, because otherwise we starve." There was a big debate. Late in the 1800s, during the Industrial Revolution, business leaders began complaining about all these rural kids who were pouring into the cities and going to work in our factories. Business leaders said that these kids were no good, and that what they needed was an educational system that would produce "industrial discipline."
What is industrial discipline?
Well, first of all, you've got to show up on time. Out in the fields, on the farms, if you go out with your family to pick a crop, and you come ten minutes late, your uncle covers for you and it's no big deal. But if you're on an assembly line and you're late, you mess up the work of 10,000 people down the line. Very expensive. So punctuality suddenly becomes important.
You don't want to be tardy.
Yes. In school, bells ring and you mustn't be tardy. And you march from class to class when the bells ring again. And many people take a yellow bus to school. What is the yellow bus? A preparation for commuting. And you do rote and repetitive work as you would do on an assembly line.
Alvin Toffler appears on a television monitor as he testifies before a Congressional Economic Committee in June on Capitol Hill. This is the first time that interactive video and teleconferencing technology has been used during congressional hearings.
Credit: Getty Images
How does that system fit into a world where assembly lines have gone away?
It doesn't. The public school system is designed to produce a workforce for an economy that will not be there. And therefore, with all the best intentions in the world, we're stealing the kids' future.
Do I have all the answers for how to replace it? No. But it seems to me that before we can get serious about creating an appropriate education system for the world that's coming and that these kids will have to operate within, we have to ask some really fundamental questions. And some of these questions are scary. For example: Should education be compulsory? And, if so, for who? Why does everybody have to start at age five? Maybe some kids should start at age eight and work fast. Or vice versa. Why is everything massified in the system, rather than individualized in the system? New technologies make possible customization in a way that the old system -- everybody reading the same textbook at the same time -- did not offer.
You're talking about customizing the educational experience.
Exactly. Any form of diversity that we can introduce into the schools is a plus. Today, we have a big controversy about all the charter schools that are springing up. The school system people hate them because they're taking money from them. I say we should radically multiply charter schools, because they begin to provide a degree of diversity in the system that has not been present. Diversify the system.
In our book Revolutionary Wealth, we play a game. We say, imagine that you're a policeman, and you've got a radar gun, and you're measuring the speed of cars going by. Each car represents an American institution. The first one car is going by at 100 miles per hour. It's called business. Businesses have to change at 100 miles per hour because if they don't, they die. Competition just puts them out of the game. So they're traveling very, very fast. Then comes another car. And it's going 10 miles per hour. That's the public education system. Schools are supposed to be preparing kids for the business world of tomorrow, to take jobs, to make our economy functional. The schools are changing, if anything, at 10 miles per hour. So, how do you match an economy that requires 100 miles per hour with an institution like public education? A system that changes, if at all, at 10 miles per hour?
It's a tough juxtaposition. So, what to do? Suppose you were made head of the U.S. Department of Education. What would be the first items on your agenda?
The first thing I'd say: "I want to hear something I haven't heard before." I just hear the same ideas over and over and over again. I meet teachers who are good and well intentioned and smart, but they can't try new things, because there are too many rules. They tell me that "the bureaucratic rules make it impossible for me to do what you're suggesting." So, how do we bust up that? It is easy to develop the world's best technologies compared with how hard it is to bust up a big bureaucracy like the public education system with the enormous numbers of jobs dependent on it and industries that feed it.
Here's a complaint you often hear: We spend a lot of money on education, so why isn't all that money having a better result?
It's because we're doing the same thing over and over again. We're holding 40 or 50 million kids prisoner for x hours a week. And the teacher is given a set of rules as to what you're going to say to the students, how you're going to treat them, what you want the output to be, and let no child be left behind. But there's a very narrow set of outcomes. I think you have to open the system to new ideas.
When I was a student, I went through all the same rote repetitive stuff that kids go through today. And I did lousy in any number of things. The only thing I ever did any good in was English. It's what I love. You need to find out what each student loves. If you want kids to really learn, they've got to love something. For example, kids may love sports. If I were putting together a school, I might create a course, or a group of courses, on sports. But that would include the business of sports, the culture of sports, the history of sports -- and once you get into the history of sports, you then get into history more broadly.
Scene Setter:
Portrait of the young man as an artist, circa 1970.Credit: Getty Images
Integrate the curricula.
Yeah -- the culture, the technology, all these things.
Like real life.
Like real life, yes! And, like in real life, there is an enormous, enormous bank of knowledge in the community that we can tap into. So, why shouldn't a kid who's interested in mechanical things or engines or technology meet people from the community who do that kind of stuff, and who are excited about what they are doing and where it's going? But at the rate of change, the actual skills that we teach, or that they learn by themselves, about how to use this gizmo or that gizmo, that's going to be obsolete -- who knows? -- in five years or in five minutes.
So, that's another thing: Much of what we're transmitting is doomed to obsolescence at a far more rapid rate than ever before. And that knowledge becomes what we call obsoledge: obsolete knowledge. We have this enormous bank of obsolete knowledge in our heads, in our books, and in our culture. When change was slower, obsoledge didn't pile up as quickly. Now, because everything is in rapid change, the amount of obsolete knowledge that we have -- and that we teach -- is greater and greater and greater. We're drowning in obsolete information. We make big decisions -- personal decisions -- based on it, and public and political decisions based on it.
Is the idea of a textbook in the classroom obsolete?
I'm a wordsmith. I write books. I love books. So I don't want to be an accomplice to their death. But clearly, they're not enough. The textbooks are the same for every child; every child gets the same textbook. Why should that be? Why shouldn't some kids get a textbook -- and you can do this online a lot more easily than you can in print -- why shouldn't a kid who's interested in one particular thing, whether it's painting or drama, or this or that, get a different version of the textbook than the kid sitting in the next seat, who is interested in engineering?
Let's have a little exercise. Walk me through this school you'd create. What do the classrooms look like? What are the class sizes? What are the hours?
It's open twenty-four hours a day. Different kids arrive at different times. They don't all come at the same time, like an army. They don't just ring the bells at the same time. They're different kids. They have different potentials. Now, in practice, we're not going to be able to get down to the micro level with all of this, I grant you, but in fact, I would be running a twenty-four-hour school, I would have nonteachers working with teachers in that school, I would have the kids coming and going at different times that make sense for them.
The schools of today are essentially custodial: They're taking care of kids in work hours that are essentially nine to five -- when the whole society was assumed to work. Clearly, that's changing in our society. So should the timing. We're individualizing time; we're personalizing time. We're not having everyone arrive at the same time, leave at the same time. Why should kids arrive at the same time and leave at the same time?
And when do kids begin their formalized education?
Maybe some start at two or three, and some start at seven or eight -- I don't know. Every kid is different.
What else?
I think that schools have to be completely integrated into the community, to take advantage of the skills in the community. So, there ought to be business offices in the school, from various kinds of business in the community.
The name of your publication is Edutopia, and utopia is three-quarters of that title. I'm giving a utopian picture, perhaps. I don't know how to solve all those problems and how to make that happen. But what it all boils down to is, get the current system out of your head.
How does the role of the teacher change?
I think (and this is not going to sit very well with the union) that maybe teaching shouldn't be a lifetime career. Maybe it's important for teachers to quit for three or four years and go do something else and come back. They'll come back with better ideas. They'll come back with ideas about how the outside world works, in ways that would not have been available to them if they were in the classroom the whole time. So, let's sit down as a culture, as a society, and say, "Teachers, parents, people outside, how do we completely rethink this? We're going to create a new system from ground zero, and what new ideas have you got?" And collect those new ideas. That would be a very healthy thing for the country to do.
You're advocating for fundamental radical changes. Are you an optimist when it comes to public education?
I just feel it's inevitable that there will have to be change. The only question is whether we're going to do it starting now, or whether we're going to wait for catastrophe.
The following Web sites appeared in this article:
- www.alvintoffler.net: www.alvintoffler.net
Source URL:
http://www.edutopia.org/future-school
http://www.edutopia.org/future-school
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Keeping our "EYES PEELED" and our "EARS and MINDS OPEN!"
Podcast: MacArthur Foundation "Digital Media and Learning" event Wednesday, December 12, 2007
http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.3750815/
LEADERSHIP 101!
Calloway: Schools' accounting is a crime
She wants prosecutor to see insurance, other areas
December 18, 2007
BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Connie Calloway said Monday she has recommended that the district's lawyer and school board seek criminal charges in connection with its risk management office and perhaps two other areas she would not identify.
In an interview with the Free Press, Calloway said that she and her chief financial officer continue to be astounded daily by the level of what she considers fraudulent and messy accounting in the $1-billion budget.
Problems include contracts smeared with correction fluid, checks sent out without approval, and the lack of a system for evaluating the performance of the district's hundreds of contractors and vendors.
"Every day is a day of financial discovery," Calloway said.
The district already has asked the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office to review problems in its risk management office, which oversees issues such as insurance and workers compensation. Calloway said Monday that one or two other issues should be referred to the prosecutor, but she provided no other details.
Calloway said that when she arrived in Detroit last summer, she was aghast at the dysfunction within the school system and immediately decided that she would put some basic processes in place.
In a little more than five months on the job, she has hired new top-level executives, sought a new system for textbook orders and introduced a computer-based program for addressing student weaknesses on MEAP questions.
Calloway said she plans to be with the district five years at the most. In that time, she said, she aims to "change the climate, culture, condition and expectations" in an effort to improve the academic results.
But parents like Chris White want measurable results soon.
"Time out for the rhetoric. We need the basics, like safe schools and delivery of textbooks," said White, a coordinator for the Coalition to Restore Hope to DPS, which complained in October to the state about a lack of textbooks at some schools.
Calloway confirmed during Monday's interview that textbooks did not arrive at some schools in time for this school year. In fact, those books still have not arrived, she said.
Before Calloway began work, the district decided to close 33 school buildings last summer because of declining enrollment. Textbooks from those schools were supposed to be distributed to other schools where those students were assigned, but they are still sitting in a warehouse, Calloway said.
The vendor responsible for moving the books was let go, Calloway said. By the start of next school year, she said a new system would be in place and books delivered on time.
Calloway described how she held a meeting with top executives and went around the room, asking who was in charge of making sure books arrive in classrooms.
"They literally tell me, 'No one,' " she said. "It's incredulous to me."
Between financial crises and the 17 to 19 school board and board committee meetings she must attend each month, Calloway said she has had too little time to concentrate on academic improvements.
However, Calloway said, she has introduced an online program that she used in her former job in Normandy, Mo., that will allow teachers to look at each problem that their students answered on a standardized test. It is intended to help teachers pinpoint specific difficulties.
Other districts in metro Detroit are spending millions on such software with help from intermediate school districts. In Oakland County, at least 26 districts use programs that allow educators to compare multiple tests with the state standards, and 18 have programs that allow teachers to analyze their own classroom tests.
By the end of this school year, nearly all districts in Wayne County will be able to analyze performance data with a new real-time program purchased with help from the Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency, said Judy Bonne, the agency's executive director for instruction.
The agency is spending $1.2 million on the program; districts eventually will pay a per-student user fee for its maintenance.
DPS has employed several performance analyzers in the past, teachers and officials said. The challenge is getting teachers to use them.
"I can't compel anyone" to use the data, Calloway said, adding that she can only "offer it and make it available."
Doug Carey, a math teacher at McMichael Technological Academy who has worked 11 years in the district, said what Calloway proposes "would be minimally useful."
Carey said he's no fan of standardized tests, but he found that this year's MEAP test had more questions germane to what students need to know to be prepared for high school.
"There are so many kids, their responses are so different on the tests and basic skills are lacking," he said.
Calloway said the district's biggest day-to-day challenge continues to be a basic one: making payroll. This year's budget includes at least $20 million in spending that was not accounted for during the budgeting process, she said.
The district has about 105,000 students and could face financial disaster if enrollment slips below 100,000. By law that would mean more charter schools could open, likely draining away more students and funding.
"This is such a critical time for Detroit," Calloway said. "Process determines product."
Contact CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY at 313-223-4537 or cpratt@freepress.com.
Connie Calloway: 'Every day is a day of financial discovery'
December 18, 2007
Here are excerpts from an interview Monday with Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Connie Calloway. You can also hear Calloway at freep.com/opinion.
QUESTION: What's the most pressing thing on your agenda these days?
ANSWER: The most pressing issue is always making payroll. In a district of our size, with our budget, we should always have a $50-million balance on the books. That hasn't been the case since I was hired. When I came here in July, they were in a deficit mode, and we have juggled.
There are several high-ticket expenditures that should have been taken care of in last year's budget that were not. So they're in the 2007-08 budget. For example, it's estimated that the expenses related to the right-sizing program were somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 million, but they were not paid for in '06-07.
Q: You mean the cost of closing schools?
A: Our district calls it right-sizing. Yes.
Q: So just the expenses of shutting down?
A: Shutting down. Transporting furniture. Providing space in the warehouse. Hiring companies to conduct inventory. Securing the building --
all of that.
There is also a federal law that, by the year 2008, all employees have an FBI check in their file. Districts have known about this for several years, and Detroit, with nearly 16,000 employees, has not put that program in place. The expense is approximately $60 per employee, and the districts typically pay for that, or they set a policy that any new employee pays it. We will comply with that federal guideline, and that will be to the tune of approximately $1 million.
With the last-chance schools, in 2005-06, they were first advised that there would a $5.9-million penalty for not following guidelines, and the state granted them a grace year to straighten the program out. The Detroit schools increased their last-chance schools from four to 14 without implementing the guidelines. The window of opportunity had passed by the time I arrived, and there was a $5.9-million penalty for '06-07 that was not in the budget.
Q: What about the impact of declining enrollment?
A: Since the riots, attendance started to drop off sharply and declined approximately 10,000 students a year. According to the demographic report that we looked at, this was the first year that the drop was 7,000, as opposed to 10,000. There are other factors that contribute to declining enrollment: labor management issues, or a strike or the threat of a strike. Parents want stability.
So there's much that we need to do in terms of retaining our students, and a lot of that will happen through achievement, through safe environments, through highly professional and competent staff, through managing resources, and regaining confidence that we are careful stewards with the money and funds.
Q: How will you achieve that long-term?
A: When I agreed to accept this huge challenge, it was with an understanding that I was willing to commit for five years. In that time, I don't just want to put my program in place. I would like to institutionalize systems and accounting practices. We're not here just to fix it for the moment, but to put people and systems in place that will keep the district moving in a way that it should. Every day is a day of financial discovery. ...
(Here, the school district's chief financial officer, Joan McCray, continues.) Almost every transaction is questionable, up to and including payroll. There are contracts with advanced payments. There are employees who have been paid loans. ... There are contracts where the language is inappropriate for the contract. No original contracts, pages missing, contracts whited out. Fraudulent checks. ...
(Here Calloway continues.) The choice of the superintendent is to meet the public demand and get the job done, or hold the person accountable.
This is a large district. I can't do everyone's job. I have to hold people accountable. So if the job isn't done, then it's up to me to say: We need to find a competent, qualified, willing person. So my first test case was the community's response to me filling some high-profile positions. My responsibility is to put competent, knowledgeable individuals who are willing to look at new systems to move the district forward. Once we put people in places that are going to bring in systems of change, we begin to fix the system.
Q: Are you likely to take something to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office?
A: When we find a questionable practice, we go right to general counsel. General counsel then advises us where we need to go. ... We have requested criminal investigation or involvement in at least two or three matters. It will be under advisement of the legal counsel and, of course, the board's approval, if we move forward with those matters.
Q: Is it right to say you're less concerned with holding people accountable for what's happened in the past than you are with getting the right people in place now?
A: I prefer to say that I've been forced to make a choice: I'm either loyal to people or to accountability. And I'm going to be loyal to accountability.
Q: Does that mean you're talking about making some rather wholesale changes in your administrative ranks?
A: They've been made, and they have been very difficult. I'm still suspect. I'm still the outsider.
We cannot be an employment agency. We have to be a school. So I have to make that choice, and the board has been fully supportive. It was a struggle initially, because they were very concerned about whom this new person was going to select. For me, people who are honest, ethical, loyal and competent -- those are the qualities I need. Thus far, I haven't had the opportunity to attend to our number one challenge -- achievement -- because every day is a day of financial discovery. Every day.
What the superintendent said ...
December 18, 2007
On systematic changes she plans
• "We're not just here to fix it for the moment."
On personnel decisions
• "I've been forced to make a choice -- either be loyal to people or to accountability, and I'm going to be loyal to accountability."
• "We cannot be an employment agency. We have to be a school."
• "The challenge is to find willing, qualified, competent, able people ... who are willing to put new systems in place ... someone who isn't going to cut a deal under the table."
On textbooks
• I am "astounded that a large system -- almost as big as a city government -- has not handled its most critical piece: textbooks."
Calloway points schools upward
December 18, 2007
History makes it hard to give too much credit too soon to Detroit school superintendents.
But a half-year into the job, Connie Calloway merits a measure of it, if only for her candor about the scope of DPS mismanagement and her commitment so far to establishing a process-driven administration that will be transparent about what it's doing and why.
"We cannot be an employment agency," Calloway said Monday in a meeting with the Free Press editorial board (see opposite page) in which she outlined some of the haphazard, inefficient and possibly criminal practices she has found while taking charge of Michigan's largest school district.
"Every day is a day of financial discovery," Calloway said.
But rather than dwelling on the mess in her lap, Calloway is trying to lead the district to higher ground. She has led a major shake-up of top management, and brought aboard a new general counsel, assistant superintendent, and facilities, procurement and contract chiefs. Calloway said the general counsel is reviewing three issues that could be referred to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office. She also said she has had to put a process in place to make sure that school textbooks are moved out of warehouses and into classrooms.
In-between all of that and school board meetings, Calloway is implementing a district-wide data system that will allow teachers, staff and parents to track a student's progress and tailor instruction to needs. Similar systems have been implemented in other districts and even some entire states.
To make it work fully in Detroit, the Calloway administration needs a partner in the Detroit Federation of Teachers, in effect a better working relationship with the teachers' union than past superintendents have had. The two need not be adversaries if both are focused on helping children, improving the schools and stopping the hemorrhaging of students that is costing DPS millions of dollars in state aid that it cannot afford to lose.
She wants prosecutor to see insurance, other areas
December 18, 2007
BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Connie Calloway said Monday she has recommended that the district's lawyer and school board seek criminal charges in connection with its risk management office and perhaps two other areas she would not identify.
In an interview with the Free Press, Calloway said that she and her chief financial officer continue to be astounded daily by the level of what she considers fraudulent and messy accounting in the $1-billion budget.
Problems include contracts smeared with correction fluid, checks sent out without approval, and the lack of a system for evaluating the performance of the district's hundreds of contractors and vendors.
"Every day is a day of financial discovery," Calloway said.
The district already has asked the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office to review problems in its risk management office, which oversees issues such as insurance and workers compensation. Calloway said Monday that one or two other issues should be referred to the prosecutor, but she provided no other details.
Calloway said that when she arrived in Detroit last summer, she was aghast at the dysfunction within the school system and immediately decided that she would put some basic processes in place.
In a little more than five months on the job, she has hired new top-level executives, sought a new system for textbook orders and introduced a computer-based program for addressing student weaknesses on MEAP questions.
Calloway said she plans to be with the district five years at the most. In that time, she said, she aims to "change the climate, culture, condition and expectations" in an effort to improve the academic results.
But parents like Chris White want measurable results soon.
"Time out for the rhetoric. We need the basics, like safe schools and delivery of textbooks," said White, a coordinator for the Coalition to Restore Hope to DPS, which complained in October to the state about a lack of textbooks at some schools.
Calloway confirmed during Monday's interview that textbooks did not arrive at some schools in time for this school year. In fact, those books still have not arrived, she said.
Before Calloway began work, the district decided to close 33 school buildings last summer because of declining enrollment. Textbooks from those schools were supposed to be distributed to other schools where those students were assigned, but they are still sitting in a warehouse, Calloway said.
The vendor responsible for moving the books was let go, Calloway said. By the start of next school year, she said a new system would be in place and books delivered on time.
Calloway described how she held a meeting with top executives and went around the room, asking who was in charge of making sure books arrive in classrooms.
"They literally tell me, 'No one,' " she said. "It's incredulous to me."
Between financial crises and the 17 to 19 school board and board committee meetings she must attend each month, Calloway said she has had too little time to concentrate on academic improvements.
However, Calloway said, she has introduced an online program that she used in her former job in Normandy, Mo., that will allow teachers to look at each problem that their students answered on a standardized test. It is intended to help teachers pinpoint specific difficulties.
Other districts in metro Detroit are spending millions on such software with help from intermediate school districts. In Oakland County, at least 26 districts use programs that allow educators to compare multiple tests with the state standards, and 18 have programs that allow teachers to analyze their own classroom tests.
By the end of this school year, nearly all districts in Wayne County will be able to analyze performance data with a new real-time program purchased with help from the Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency, said Judy Bonne, the agency's executive director for instruction.
The agency is spending $1.2 million on the program; districts eventually will pay a per-student user fee for its maintenance.
DPS has employed several performance analyzers in the past, teachers and officials said. The challenge is getting teachers to use them.
"I can't compel anyone" to use the data, Calloway said, adding that she can only "offer it and make it available."
Doug Carey, a math teacher at McMichael Technological Academy who has worked 11 years in the district, said what Calloway proposes "would be minimally useful."
Carey said he's no fan of standardized tests, but he found that this year's MEAP test had more questions germane to what students need to know to be prepared for high school.
"There are so many kids, their responses are so different on the tests and basic skills are lacking," he said.
Calloway said the district's biggest day-to-day challenge continues to be a basic one: making payroll. This year's budget includes at least $20 million in spending that was not accounted for during the budgeting process, she said.
The district has about 105,000 students and could face financial disaster if enrollment slips below 100,000. By law that would mean more charter schools could open, likely draining away more students and funding.
"This is such a critical time for Detroit," Calloway said. "Process determines product."
Contact CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY at 313-223-4537 or cpratt@freepress.com.
Connie Calloway: 'Every day is a day of financial discovery'
December 18, 2007
Here are excerpts from an interview Monday with Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Connie Calloway. You can also hear Calloway at freep.com/opinion.
QUESTION: What's the most pressing thing on your agenda these days?
ANSWER: The most pressing issue is always making payroll. In a district of our size, with our budget, we should always have a $50-million balance on the books. That hasn't been the case since I was hired. When I came here in July, they were in a deficit mode, and we have juggled.
There are several high-ticket expenditures that should have been taken care of in last year's budget that were not. So they're in the 2007-08 budget. For example, it's estimated that the expenses related to the right-sizing program were somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 million, but they were not paid for in '06-07.
Q: You mean the cost of closing schools?
A: Our district calls it right-sizing. Yes.
Q: So just the expenses of shutting down?
A: Shutting down. Transporting furniture. Providing space in the warehouse. Hiring companies to conduct inventory. Securing the building --
all of that.
There is also a federal law that, by the year 2008, all employees have an FBI check in their file. Districts have known about this for several years, and Detroit, with nearly 16,000 employees, has not put that program in place. The expense is approximately $60 per employee, and the districts typically pay for that, or they set a policy that any new employee pays it. We will comply with that federal guideline, and that will be to the tune of approximately $1 million.
With the last-chance schools, in 2005-06, they were first advised that there would a $5.9-million penalty for not following guidelines, and the state granted them a grace year to straighten the program out. The Detroit schools increased their last-chance schools from four to 14 without implementing the guidelines. The window of opportunity had passed by the time I arrived, and there was a $5.9-million penalty for '06-07 that was not in the budget.
Q: What about the impact of declining enrollment?
A: Since the riots, attendance started to drop off sharply and declined approximately 10,000 students a year. According to the demographic report that we looked at, this was the first year that the drop was 7,000, as opposed to 10,000. There are other factors that contribute to declining enrollment: labor management issues, or a strike or the threat of a strike. Parents want stability.
So there's much that we need to do in terms of retaining our students, and a lot of that will happen through achievement, through safe environments, through highly professional and competent staff, through managing resources, and regaining confidence that we are careful stewards with the money and funds.
Q: How will you achieve that long-term?
A: When I agreed to accept this huge challenge, it was with an understanding that I was willing to commit for five years. In that time, I don't just want to put my program in place. I would like to institutionalize systems and accounting practices. We're not here just to fix it for the moment, but to put people and systems in place that will keep the district moving in a way that it should. Every day is a day of financial discovery. ...
(Here, the school district's chief financial officer, Joan McCray, continues.) Almost every transaction is questionable, up to and including payroll. There are contracts with advanced payments. There are employees who have been paid loans. ... There are contracts where the language is inappropriate for the contract. No original contracts, pages missing, contracts whited out. Fraudulent checks. ...
(Here Calloway continues.) The choice of the superintendent is to meet the public demand and get the job done, or hold the person accountable.
This is a large district. I can't do everyone's job. I have to hold people accountable. So if the job isn't done, then it's up to me to say: We need to find a competent, qualified, willing person. So my first test case was the community's response to me filling some high-profile positions. My responsibility is to put competent, knowledgeable individuals who are willing to look at new systems to move the district forward. Once we put people in places that are going to bring in systems of change, we begin to fix the system.
Q: Are you likely to take something to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office?
A: When we find a questionable practice, we go right to general counsel. General counsel then advises us where we need to go. ... We have requested criminal investigation or involvement in at least two or three matters. It will be under advisement of the legal counsel and, of course, the board's approval, if we move forward with those matters.
Q: Is it right to say you're less concerned with holding people accountable for what's happened in the past than you are with getting the right people in place now?
A: I prefer to say that I've been forced to make a choice: I'm either loyal to people or to accountability. And I'm going to be loyal to accountability.
Q: Does that mean you're talking about making some rather wholesale changes in your administrative ranks?
A: They've been made, and they have been very difficult. I'm still suspect. I'm still the outsider.
We cannot be an employment agency. We have to be a school. So I have to make that choice, and the board has been fully supportive. It was a struggle initially, because they were very concerned about whom this new person was going to select. For me, people who are honest, ethical, loyal and competent -- those are the qualities I need. Thus far, I haven't had the opportunity to attend to our number one challenge -- achievement -- because every day is a day of financial discovery. Every day.
What the superintendent said ...
December 18, 2007
On systematic changes she plans
• "We're not just here to fix it for the moment."
On personnel decisions
• "I've been forced to make a choice -- either be loyal to people or to accountability, and I'm going to be loyal to accountability."
• "We cannot be an employment agency. We have to be a school."
• "The challenge is to find willing, qualified, competent, able people ... who are willing to put new systems in place ... someone who isn't going to cut a deal under the table."
On textbooks
• I am "astounded that a large system -- almost as big as a city government -- has not handled its most critical piece: textbooks."
Calloway points schools upward
December 18, 2007
History makes it hard to give too much credit too soon to Detroit school superintendents.
But a half-year into the job, Connie Calloway merits a measure of it, if only for her candor about the scope of DPS mismanagement and her commitment so far to establishing a process-driven administration that will be transparent about what it's doing and why.
"We cannot be an employment agency," Calloway said Monday in a meeting with the Free Press editorial board (see opposite page) in which she outlined some of the haphazard, inefficient and possibly criminal practices she has found while taking charge of Michigan's largest school district.
"Every day is a day of financial discovery," Calloway said.
But rather than dwelling on the mess in her lap, Calloway is trying to lead the district to higher ground. She has led a major shake-up of top management, and brought aboard a new general counsel, assistant superintendent, and facilities, procurement and contract chiefs. Calloway said the general counsel is reviewing three issues that could be referred to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office. She also said she has had to put a process in place to make sure that school textbooks are moved out of warehouses and into classrooms.
In-between all of that and school board meetings, Calloway is implementing a district-wide data system that will allow teachers, staff and parents to track a student's progress and tailor instruction to needs. Similar systems have been implemented in other districts and even some entire states.
To make it work fully in Detroit, the Calloway administration needs a partner in the Detroit Federation of Teachers, in effect a better working relationship with the teachers' union than past superintendents have had. The two need not be adversaries if both are focused on helping children, improving the schools and stopping the hemorrhaging of students that is costing DPS millions of dollars in state aid that it cannot afford to lose.
Monday, December 17, 2007
READ ALL About IT! (Michigan Chronicle)
Wayne County Community College launches inaugural International Public Book Fair
By Randy Walker
What will it take to get thousands of urban African American and other minority group high school children to read more? Whose responsibility is it to create a masterplan that will ensure that young people will start to exchange hip hop�s bombardment and bling for books or essays by [James] Baldwin?
Wayne County Community College District recently launched its Inaugural International Public book fair at its downtown campus spearheading the effort to meet the challenge.
Radio personality, Mildred Gaddis introduced Dr. Cornel West as the guest speaker to a crowd of more than one thousand students, faculty and guests.
He addressed the crowd with passion telling them that, �we are responsible for saving our children.�
Over the years, Dr. West has served as one of the warriors bridging the gap between the hip hop generation and the more traditional Black America.
Others who are taking on that challenge are Al Sharpton, Michael Eric Dyson, Tavis Smiley and Jesse Jackson, just to mention a few.
Students from Highland Park Public Schools, Dado Last Chance Academy, Henry Ford Academy and Detroit Academy of Arts and Science filled the standing room only atrium area to hear the message.
Students listened with amazement as Dr. West spoke to them in hip hop language rather than a high-brow intellectual delivery. Dr. West is also a hip hop artist.
�Kanye West is on top of the hip hop world, but, when you are on top you have to have responsibility as well as creativity. Music is the most fundamental way we get distance from our pain,� he said. Dr. West told the teens, �you need to listen to rap lyrics with a critical mind. Learn to think for yourself and find out what your calling is. There is a difference in a calling and a career. Don�t confuse your day job with your calling.�
Following his talk, Dr. West opened the floor for questions and dialogue.
�How do you feel about the light skin Blacks vs. the dark skin Black?� asked one Highland Park High student.
�It�s the pathology of white supremacy. It started with white folk and has worked its way into the minds of Blacks. Look at your BET videos, what do you see?� Dr. West asked the crowd.
�Light skin dancer, never dark skin,� the high school students shouted back.
After Dr. West ended his presentation, Dr. Swan, Vice Chancellor, came to the podium and announced that everyone present would receive a copy of Dr. West�s latest cd, BMWMB, (Black Men Who Mean Business) featuring Dr. West, Ambassador & Paul Woodruff, Prince, KSR ONE, Andre 3000, Jill Scott, Darryl Moore, Rah Digga, IRIZ and more.
Many could say Wayne County Community College District has served the African American community well in addition to metropolitan Detroit.
Having close contact with young people and students on a daily and consistent basis, the school and its faculty is looking to improve the overall performance and readiness of today�s young generation.
�Our aim is to extend more resources to the students that will make a real difference in their academic endeavors,� said one representative.
�We are offering programs for children of all ages; the Bookworm Club-beginners, ages three - five; The Bookworm Club, ages six & seven, and the Young Readers Club, ages seven � ten, these are just a few of the selective programs from our Continuing Education enrichment program,� said Ms. India Smith, Ph. D., candidate Education Students with Special needs, Campus Operation Associate.
Randy Walker is author of Tripping In the Darkness.
Friday, December 14, 2007
"Put ME In Coach!" I'm Ready to PLAY!
Published Online: December 11, 2007
Published in Print: December 12, 2007
Coaching Teachers to Help Students Learn
Districts are choosing on-site coaches as a way to enhance their teachers’ instructional practices and thereby improve the chances of their students’ success.
Thornton, Colo.
When the Adams 12 school district introduced a new mathematics curriculum to elementary schools several years ago, leaders here turned to an idea both old and new to make the change a success. They created a position dubbed “student-achievement coach” that gives each school a skilled teacher ready to urge her colleagues forward in three areas: putting math across, helping English-language learners in the classroom, and using assessment to improve instruction.
Adams 12 already had coaches for the teaching of reading and writing, and so had experience with the progress teachers can make when help from an accomplished colleague is woven into their work.
“We think the coaching model has been a critical component in the rise of student achievement,” said Superintendent Michael F. Paskewicz, citing three straight years of growth in state test scores, including two years in which Adams 12’s increases outstripped those of the other districts in the Denver metropolitan area.
Educational fads come and go, but coaching for teachers is fast becoming a tool of choice for striving districts. That’s in part because of a research consensus that teachers are the most important factor in student learning among those that schools can control.
Literacy coach Nancy McLean, left, takes notes while observing 1st grade teacher Charity Haviland working with students on a reading lesson at North Star Elementary.
—Erik Lars Bakke for Education Week
It also reflects dissatisfaction with the standard ways districts have tried to help teachers get better. Workshops and courses, experts argue, don’t come close to doing the job. The assistance has to be sustained and as much a part of teachers’ daily work as possible, they say. Coaching fits that bill.
With old-style professional development, “there really isn’t any transfer to the actual classroom,” said Audrey A. Arellano-Davie, the director of professional development for Adams 12. “But to have a person on site, able to do problem-solving right there and part of the same community—we thought that was the most cost-effective way to build capacity.”
Jean Rutherford, an expert on educational best practices for the National Center for Educational Accountability, in Austin, Texas, said her group hears constantly from high-performing elementary schools about the value of a reading and a math coach. “We absolutely include that in our description of such schools,” she said.
In comparing coaches to other programs that bid to increase student learning, education economist Eric A. Hanushek has reanalyzed data from Washington state. He found that $100 spent on classroom coaches would net student-learning gains “very similar” to those that the same amount spent on full-day kindergarten would achieve. And the gains from coaching would be about six times more than those for class-size reduction, according to Mr. Hanushek.
The promise of such returns has made districts look to coaching, despite the high price tag and the many design decisions that have to be made about the programs.
Dallas is spending about $14.4 million of its $1.2 billion operating budget this year for just under 200 full-time coaches.
The program started toward the end of the 2005-06 school year when officials, heeding the recommendation of Ms. Rutherford’s group, began hiring more people for coaching and changing their job description. Before, subject specialists might be assigned to help teachers at as many as eight schools. With the new approach, content-specific coaches—literacy, math, science, or social studies—work at a single school chosen because of low test scores in that subject.
Coach Melissa Jennings points to test scores as she and Kendra Pollard try to figure out what version of math the teacher can offer a more advanced student.
—Eric Lars Bakke for Education Week
To accommodate the program, 88 positions were axed from the central office, according to Denise Collier, the chief academic officer of the 160,000-student district. Unlike in Adams 12, where coaches are paid just the same as if they were classroom teachers, Dallas coaches get $6,000 added to their teacher salaries.
Memphis, Tenn., also recently upgraded its coaching program. Before this year, almost all of the district’s 197 schools had an extra teacher whose primary focus was helping ensure compliance with federal regulations for spending Title I anti-poverty money. Improving instruction was a secondary function.
Now, those priorities have been reversed, and the renamed “coaches” have to be screened for quality by the district. For the first time, too, significant training for coaching is part of the job. Also, coaches specialized in literacy or math have been deployed to the district’s lowest-performing schools.
In the old days, said Myra I. Whitney, an associate superintendent, the special teachers were not responsible for professional development schoolwide. “Now, they’re working with teams of teachers, and it’s not a unilateral decision of teachers to come or not.”
In the Adams 12 district on the northern border of Denver one day last month, Dana Sorenson, a coach of coaches, swung by North Star Elementary School to check in with one of her charges on the day before an important meeting.
Adams 12 is like many districts these days, investing in a teacher-coaching program even as funding challenges and a growing number of children from poor and non-English-speaking families put changes to it on the horizon. The 39,000-student district first acquired coaches in 2002, when a “building-literacy leader” job was redefined to emphasize teaching improvement.
What Is Coaching?
In the Adams 12 district, coaching is:
• OBSERVING TEACHERS AND PROVIDING FEEDBACK
• CO-TEACHING AND COPLANNING WITH TEACHERS
• FACILITATING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Covering classes so one teacher can observe another teacher for short periods of time
• HELPING TEACHERS FIND WAYS TO USE DATA TO DRIVE INSTRUCTION
What coaching is not:
• Having your own students
• Acting as a teacher’s aide
• Doing individual student assessments
• Evaluating teachers
• Working as a substitute teacher
Ms. Sorenson, whose territory covers the district’s 10 elementary schools receiving federal anti-poverty money, pulls up to a table in the office shared by the school’s two full-time coaches. It’s down a dim, low-ceilinged hall away from the school’s modest lobby.
The academic news this year at North Star, situated in a worn neighborhood of brick ranch houses occupied largely by Spanish-speaking families, has not been good. The school failed to reach the mark set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act in both reading—as has happened in previous years—and math, which is new.
When the three 4th grade teachers meet with Melissa Jennings, the student-achievement coach, they will be talking about the many ways to assess how far their children have come in math and mapping out a lesson on fractions and decimals that incorporates some of those options.
“I’m giving them key questions, steps, and looking at the instruction a little bit more deeply,” said Ms. Jennings, who consulted with Ms. Sorenson about her handouts for the meeting.
Considerations in starting a teacher-coaching program:
• How to sustain funding
• How to define coaching
• How to evaluate coaching
• How to select coaches
• How to deploy coaches to schools
• How to provide support at the district level, including policies and professional learning
• How to prepare principals, the key to support at the school level
From the start, the coaching job was meant not just to support and challenge individual teachers, though that’s a part of the work. It was also meant to leverage the potential of teachers laboring in groups to advance their practice, both individually and collectively.
Janette Bills, a veteran 4th grade teacher who attended the meeting the next day, praised the get-together for affording the colleagues time “to figure out where to go.” Last year, the teachers got three such days; this year, it’s three half-days because of cost-cutting.
In her 11 years at the school, she said, teachers have always been willing to share what they know for the good of their students.
“But Melissa has helped enhance that,” Ms. Bills said. “She makes the focus narrower, such as on one lesson. Then you can go back to other lessons” and apply those same principles.
Principals in Adams 12 are enthusiastic about the expanded program using student-achievement coaches, or SACs. All but two or three of the 30 principals surveyed in 2006, at the end of the student-achievement-coach program’s second year, supported it at the highest level. One principal wrote, “I would think twice about being at a Title [I] school without the assistance of a full-time SAC. … Our SAC has been instrumental in elevating the level of instructional mastery in order to move us off correctional-action status.”
In a survey the following year, another offered, “Teachers now believe that they can get kids, no matter what, to achieve in math. … They are being more thoughtful about what and how they are teaching.”
Still, the coaching program could soon be in flux again.
Student-achievement coach Melissa Jennings, second from left, meets with 4th grade teachers, from left, Janette Bills, Sonia de Rivera, and Kendra Pollard to map out a new algorithm strategy.
—Eric Lars Bakke for Education Week
Mr. Paskewicz, the superintendent, has warned that the district could be squeezed by as much as $6.7 million in the coming school year, mostly in order to pay the growing costs of employee health care and retirement.
“We are not necessarily going to do away with the [coach] positions, but we may think differently about them,” said Catherine Ortega, the assistant superintendent for learning services. In addition to about $3 million in salaries, the district puts money from its $250 million operating budget into benefits and support for the coaches, who get about two days of training a month and their own coaches from the central office.
Among possible changes could be combining the roles of the student-achievement and literacy coaches in elementary schools. Any new plan would steer clear, though, of reducing extra teaching staff at schools serving larger numbers of children from poor families where English is a second language, according to Ms. Arellano-Davie, the professional-development director.
The idea of doing away with the half-time coach/half-time teacher model used in a number of Adams 12 schools does not sit well with some, though. “I feel I have a lot more buy-in with staff because I’m doing what they are,” said Carridy Koski, who combines literacy coaching with teaching 1st grade at Glacier Park Elementary School.
Jan Killick, who oversees literacy coaches in the field, is concerned that one person with deep knowledge of the reading and math curriculum might be hard to find. Already, she said, the district has had to relax its requirement that literacy coaches hold a master’s degree in reading.
On such questions, no “tried and true formula” exists because coaching is too new, says a 2003 white paper on coaching from the Aspen Institute Program on Education and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Coaches are better attached to a single school at a time, if not for a whole school year, then for part of one, according to the paper. Otherwise, their work is too fragmented. But when it comes to whether coaches should retain part-time teaching assignments, there are pros and cons, the authors say.
Nancy McLean and Jessica Grojean, right, brainstorm ideas for the 5th grade teacher’s writing class.
—Eric Lars Bakke for Education Week
Design questions are important, but some experts are concerned that coaching programs face a greater challenge than making the right choices for who is deployed where.
“I’m a big fan of coaching as a professional-development strategy,” especially when it is combined with “learning communities” among teachers, said Richard F. Elmore, a professor of education at Harvard University’s graduate school of education.
But, Mr. Elmore warned, school boards don’t tend to understand the importance of having enough talented people doing the work or of supporting them properly in the school and from the central office. So as a coaching program moves out of a pilot phase and costs go way up, it is hard to keep the money flowing, he said.
Coupled with that, Mr. Elmore argued, coaches won’t be effective in schools that lack the organizational capacity to take advantage of them, such as a focus on achievement and a good principal.
“I can see people saying, ‘Coaching is really expensive … and it didn’t have an impact,’ ” he said. That spells the end of the program and, worse, he said, “devalues the very strategy that could help the system get better.”
A Case of the Solution being the Problem! (In more ways then one)
Educating 21st Century Engineers
Posted on 12/13/2007 6:31:23 PM
Kettering University's Jim Gover, professor of electrical and computer engineering, is co-author of a new e-book published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers on "Educating 21st Century Engineers."
The book, written with Paul Huray of the University of South Carolina, offers explicit examples of why the United States is being overtaken in the innovation game and how we can systematically address this problem and maintain our prominence in the global economy as the world’s innovator.
The authors note in their foreword that due to the importance of engineering on economic growth and the pressures of the global economy, “it is time for the federal government to declare engineering a public good. And it is time for U.S. corporations to fill a major role in engineering education.”
Gover, an IEEE fellow, and Huray note that some of the most critical issues regarding the lack of innovation from U.S. firms are clearly rooted in corporate engineering hiring strategies, which the authors describe as seriously flawed.
Because there is a decrease in the number of U.S. citizens studying engineering, companies have lobbied Congress to increase the number of H-1b work visas from 65,000 a year to 180,000.
Furthermore, since many American students cannot afford the cost of an engineering education, foreign students fill classroom seats and U.S. taxpayers foot the bill. With American firms hiring foreign engineers at an increasing rate, these professionals often gain the necessary experience in engineering they need, then leave for their home countries, where they can earn higher incomes when measured in terms of purchasing power.
In fact, much of the economic boom in India is due in to successful nationals who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, then returned to India to help modernize the country. The result is a loss of experienced engineers for companies in the U.S. Added to this is the issue of outsourcing, which negatively impacts a company’s R & D development: many overseas corporate partners of American companies often develop knock-off products and sell them to niche markets at low costs, a practice that violates patent protection laws but which is difficult for U.S. firms and the federal government to police.
Gover and Huray also explain in their book that economists link economic growth to increases in labor productivity, which is primarily driven by technology innovation. Unfortunately, the U.S., according to university presidents and industry executives from prestigious companies, have claimed for years now that there is a shortage of engineers graduating from American colleges and universities.
However, a closer look at this situation gets to the real heart of the matter: there is a shortage of highly innovative U.S. born engineering graduates ready to enter the work force immediately and make innovative contributions. Simply put, high school students are not enrolling in engineering or science-related fields and many critics suggest that this is because U.S. K-12 math and science education is weak. But Gover and Huray argue that an increase in engineering enrollment may not result from improved K-12 math and science education.
Instead, they say there are other specific reasons for the continuing decline in engineering enrollment:
* Some U.S. firms spend more on lawyers or MBAs than on research and development: students could interpret this data to mean there are more career opportunities in law and business than in science and engineering. * Engineering employment doesn’t provide the stability that it did when engineering enrollments were increasing; the Big Three's problems have resulted in engineering job cuts.
* Most corporate human resources departments do not understand that a degree in engineering provides graduates a logical approach that is applicable to problems students have yet to encounter. Corporate HR departments often treat engineering education similar to training programs for routine tasks. As a result, companies often turn away qualified engineers because their work experience does not exactly fit the job the company is seeking to fill.
Undergraduate engineering education is costly and the expense continues to increase. State funded schools typically charge on average roughly $15,000 or more for in-state tuition for undergraduate engineering education. The cost of tuition for other high profile institutions can cost anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 a year. As a result, more and more engineering students often graduate with student loan debts exceeding $40,000.
Historically, most of the nation’s engineers came from veterans and students from farming families. Veterans learned about technological advances through their military training and experiences, and as the farming industry began to dwindle, students from farming environments turned to engineering. For veterans, they often received tuition support through the GI Program.
The number of students from farming environments has diminished due to the mechanization of agriculture. And since American corporations have limited experience in working with cooperative education students from U.S. colleges, U.S. industry continues to miss out on opportunities to grow their own engineers who could develop new innovations.
Additionally, females and minorities represent a small portion of engineering professionals, the authors report, even though there have been considerable efforts on the part of institutions and organizations to increase interest among these groups.
So how does the U.S. combat the lack of interest in engineering among today’s high school students and thereby encourage a new generation of engineering leaders and innovators?
The authors feel that cooperative education jobs with corporations could in many ways eradicate the issues noted above. Specifically, if companies were to pay the college tuition of these students, four major effects would result: undergraduate enrollment of U.S. born students would increase; engineering graduate school enrollment would increase; more universities would create cooperative education programs for undergraduate and graduate levels; and higher quality, innovative students would be interested in these programs and perhaps choose engineering and the sciences as possible career fields.
But for these results to occur, two critically important breakthroughs are necessary, Gover and Huray explain. First, there needs to be a national recognition of engineering as a public good, since technology engineering does indeed drive economic growth. Second, with engineering deemed a public good, tax incentives must be available to U.S. firms to hire undergraduate and graduate co-op engineering students and pay for their tuition.
The authors also stress that for this to work, the passing of legislation permitting a company to pay for co-op student tuition, pay students an appropriate salary and deduct the full tuition cost from the company’s federal tax payments, are necessary.
And the benefit? Gover and Huray state that if this legislation is indeed passed and fails to attract more students to engineering education, no reduction in federal revenues will occur. And if it is successful and significantly more students do indeed enroll in engineering-related college programs, the revenue that accrues from their salaries and innovations should compensate for reducing a corporation’s federal tax revenues. This clearly represents a win-win situation no matter how one looks at it.
The e-book, titled “Educating 21st Century Engineers,” is available through the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers by visiting http://www.ieeeusa.org/communications/ebooks/default.asp.
Gover will also present a paper on this book at the November 2007 IEEE conference in Munich, Germany, titled “Meeting the Growing Demand for Engineers and Their Educators 2010-2020.”
Posted on 12/13/2007 6:31:23 PM
Kettering University's Jim Gover, professor of electrical and computer engineering, is co-author of a new e-book published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers on "Educating 21st Century Engineers."
The book, written with Paul Huray of the University of South Carolina, offers explicit examples of why the United States is being overtaken in the innovation game and how we can systematically address this problem and maintain our prominence in the global economy as the world’s innovator.
The authors note in their foreword that due to the importance of engineering on economic growth and the pressures of the global economy, “it is time for the federal government to declare engineering a public good. And it is time for U.S. corporations to fill a major role in engineering education.”
Gover, an IEEE fellow, and Huray note that some of the most critical issues regarding the lack of innovation from U.S. firms are clearly rooted in corporate engineering hiring strategies, which the authors describe as seriously flawed.
Because there is a decrease in the number of U.S. citizens studying engineering, companies have lobbied Congress to increase the number of H-1b work visas from 65,000 a year to 180,000.
Furthermore, since many American students cannot afford the cost of an engineering education, foreign students fill classroom seats and U.S. taxpayers foot the bill. With American firms hiring foreign engineers at an increasing rate, these professionals often gain the necessary experience in engineering they need, then leave for their home countries, where they can earn higher incomes when measured in terms of purchasing power.
In fact, much of the economic boom in India is due in to successful nationals who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, then returned to India to help modernize the country. The result is a loss of experienced engineers for companies in the U.S. Added to this is the issue of outsourcing, which negatively impacts a company’s R & D development: many overseas corporate partners of American companies often develop knock-off products and sell them to niche markets at low costs, a practice that violates patent protection laws but which is difficult for U.S. firms and the federal government to police.
Gover and Huray also explain in their book that economists link economic growth to increases in labor productivity, which is primarily driven by technology innovation. Unfortunately, the U.S., according to university presidents and industry executives from prestigious companies, have claimed for years now that there is a shortage of engineers graduating from American colleges and universities.
However, a closer look at this situation gets to the real heart of the matter: there is a shortage of highly innovative U.S. born engineering graduates ready to enter the work force immediately and make innovative contributions. Simply put, high school students are not enrolling in engineering or science-related fields and many critics suggest that this is because U.S. K-12 math and science education is weak. But Gover and Huray argue that an increase in engineering enrollment may not result from improved K-12 math and science education.
Instead, they say there are other specific reasons for the continuing decline in engineering enrollment:
* Some U.S. firms spend more on lawyers or MBAs than on research and development: students could interpret this data to mean there are more career opportunities in law and business than in science and engineering. * Engineering employment doesn’t provide the stability that it did when engineering enrollments were increasing; the Big Three's problems have resulted in engineering job cuts.
* Most corporate human resources departments do not understand that a degree in engineering provides graduates a logical approach that is applicable to problems students have yet to encounter. Corporate HR departments often treat engineering education similar to training programs for routine tasks. As a result, companies often turn away qualified engineers because their work experience does not exactly fit the job the company is seeking to fill.
Undergraduate engineering education is costly and the expense continues to increase. State funded schools typically charge on average roughly $15,000 or more for in-state tuition for undergraduate engineering education. The cost of tuition for other high profile institutions can cost anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 a year. As a result, more and more engineering students often graduate with student loan debts exceeding $40,000.
Historically, most of the nation’s engineers came from veterans and students from farming families. Veterans learned about technological advances through their military training and experiences, and as the farming industry began to dwindle, students from farming environments turned to engineering. For veterans, they often received tuition support through the GI Program.
The number of students from farming environments has diminished due to the mechanization of agriculture. And since American corporations have limited experience in working with cooperative education students from U.S. colleges, U.S. industry continues to miss out on opportunities to grow their own engineers who could develop new innovations.
Additionally, females and minorities represent a small portion of engineering professionals, the authors report, even though there have been considerable efforts on the part of institutions and organizations to increase interest among these groups.
So how does the U.S. combat the lack of interest in engineering among today’s high school students and thereby encourage a new generation of engineering leaders and innovators?
The authors feel that cooperative education jobs with corporations could in many ways eradicate the issues noted above. Specifically, if companies were to pay the college tuition of these students, four major effects would result: undergraduate enrollment of U.S. born students would increase; engineering graduate school enrollment would increase; more universities would create cooperative education programs for undergraduate and graduate levels; and higher quality, innovative students would be interested in these programs and perhaps choose engineering and the sciences as possible career fields.
But for these results to occur, two critically important breakthroughs are necessary, Gover and Huray explain. First, there needs to be a national recognition of engineering as a public good, since technology engineering does indeed drive economic growth. Second, with engineering deemed a public good, tax incentives must be available to U.S. firms to hire undergraduate and graduate co-op engineering students and pay for their tuition.
The authors also stress that for this to work, the passing of legislation permitting a company to pay for co-op student tuition, pay students an appropriate salary and deduct the full tuition cost from the company’s federal tax payments, are necessary.
And the benefit? Gover and Huray state that if this legislation is indeed passed and fails to attract more students to engineering education, no reduction in federal revenues will occur. And if it is successful and significantly more students do indeed enroll in engineering-related college programs, the revenue that accrues from their salaries and innovations should compensate for reducing a corporation’s federal tax revenues. This clearly represents a win-win situation no matter how one looks at it.
The e-book, titled “Educating 21st Century Engineers,” is available through the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers by visiting http://www.ieeeusa.org/communications/ebooks/default.asp.
Gover will also present a paper on this book at the November 2007 IEEE conference in Munich, Germany, titled “Meeting the Growing Demand for Engineers and Their Educators 2010-2020.”
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Congressman goes Y2B Presidential Debates ONE Better!
Dec 12, 11:47 AM EST
Virtual Congressman Speaks at Summit
By ANDREW MIGA
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rep. Edward Markey couldn't make it to Bali for the United Nations climate change summit, so he sent along the next best thing: an animated version of himself.
Relying on computer technology, Markey, D-Mass., addressed the global climate change meeting Tuesday night using a virtual likeness of himself, known as an "avatar."
Markey's 3-D computerized likeness wore a dark blue suit, a green tie and a white shirt. He used the online community Second Life to speak in front of a computerized image of the Bali conference setting.
"I have teleported here over the Internet," he told the audience.
Markey wanted to attend the Bali conference, but he is involved in talks on the energy bill in Congress this week.
"I had to stay here in Washington to pass a clean energy bill that will make a down payment on the global warming cuts needed to save the planet," Markey said in a statement before his virtual appearance. "But it was critical to show the leaders gathered in Bali that they have partners here in America who are deeply concerned about solving global warming and re-engaging the United States on the global stage."
Markey spoke in front of a computer at a staffer's home on Capitol Hill audiences in Bali and on the Internet viewed his avatar.
"This is my first foray into Second Life, but it won't be my last," he said.
Markey is chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. He is also chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.
DPS AIMS for CHANGE!
DPS Superintendent Dr. Connie Calloway PODCAST: http://podcast.wwj.com/wwj/798850.mp3
Posted: Wednesday, 12 December 2007 9:00AM
Calloway Trying To Change Climate, Culture In DPS
Detroit (WWJ) -- Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Connie Calloway used her first community meeting to outline her plans to improve the district.
During the two-and-a-half hour meeting at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Calloway said she is working to change the climate, culture and conditions in the district. Changing those three things and expectations will lead to results, Calloway said.
At the same time Calloway lamented the fact that money from this year's budget is being used to pay for past problems.
During the forum, sponsored by the Michigan Chronicle, Calloway outlined two goals for the year include coming up with what she called "language for achievement" and governance--or getting the administration, school board and unions to work better together.
When asked during a question and answer session about the school board, Calloway said her hands are tied, she's often surprised at meetings and "we have too many agendas."
Calloway said right now she is spending too much time handling day-to-day issues and preparing for or attending meetings. Her best days she said were when she's in the schools. Her most challenging day was her first school board meeting.
Other thoughts from the meeting which was attended by about 300 people including school and city leaders, teachers and parents:
Parental involvement--Calloway said parents need to know they are a priority. "I've never seen so many engaged parents," Calloway said. She said parents are not a bother but she is working to get them more involved. She also said a task force is looking into how the community, including parents, can get involved to keep schools safer.
School safety-- Calloway said the district is taking a hard look at removing those students who act up and are deterrents to learning in classrooms. She mentioned working with the police department, but didn't go into details.
Teachers-- Calloway said the district is "hiring, hiring, hiring" and looking for highly qualified teachers. But while she said some teachers don't want to deal with "urban, minority children" she said the district has many qualified teachers.
Student achievement--Calloway said the district is setting up a new computer system that allows teachers to how each students is doing in each subject. Teachers are being trained on the system now. She said much of the instruction is focused on the MEAP test and where students are passing and failing.
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The members of Students 2.0 are a stellar example of what could happen when motivated young adults are allowed to articulate their ideas to a broad readership.
Unfortunately many (most?) of their peers are not as motivated as Lindsea, Sean, Kevin and crew. If we can't offer them some guided practice as part of their school experience, all of their voices will be lost.
Learning need to expand to fit the needs of the learners.
Posted by: diane | December 16, 2007 2:44 PM
Absolutely, Diane. Part of the difficulty for me is seeing how we get to where we want to be from where we are--within existing frameworks and mindsets. I'm just not sure there's a clear path between the two--that the new world will be so radically different than the old that we can't migrate from one to the other seamlessly, as though we're just implementing one more program. It's hard for me to imagine my own kids getting much guided practice in these technologies at school, even if I extend out some years. I feel we need a bold new vision, a clarion call to get a "man on the moon" in education--something that will so galvanize us that we're willing to go through radical change.
Posted by: Steve Hargadon | December 16, 2007 6:31 PM
This is so refreshing! We are on the verge of something so big I hope we are able to keep the vision. To the unknown.
Posted by: Cheryl Oakes | December 18, 2007 3:05 AM
Great post and great interview, Steve. It's nice to see somebody taking "the kids" (sorry, but I'll continue opposing that label, even though well-intended, as one for the dustbin until I end up in that dustbin myself) seriously.
Diane's point about motivation and the need for guidance is well-taken, but to me points to the need to create more authentic publications spaces, with more authentic audiences for students that, like Students 2.0, require quality to reach that audience.
There are obviously other possibilities for such spaces, besides a student edublog, that might motivate students to "embrace the revolution" in their own education.
Music, film, photography, and writings on a broader range of subjects than education are a case in point.
In my own senior classroom, I've been pursuing an "authentic blogging pedagogy" (no html allowed here, so: http://tinyurl.com/2pvljb) that throws out prescribed curriculum altogether, and requires only that my students identify a passion-based path of inquiry and/or production, and pursue that through connective reading-and-writing, and through showcasing their own creative pursuits on their blogs.
After a few frustrating months of watching them flounder, I'm finally seeing signs that give me hope. One student had a "mission moment" in which he identified that his blog would henceforth be the space in which he published and discussed his own musical compositions, with the aim of producing a full CD by the end of the senior year.
Others have similarly chosen photography and design as their missions, and are advancing down their own paths in those directions.
I started Students 2.0 out of frustration with all the excuses we read for not pushing authentic learning with web 2.0 forward in education. Sean's old English teacher in Scotland, "Mr. Winton (http://tinyurl.com/333gaz)," put his finger on my ultimate hope for this enterprise when he wrote,
"This attempt to give students a genuine forum where they can give an end-users view of Education2.0 is, I hope, the thin end of the wedge."
The "thin end of the wedge" indeed. We can, all of us, create more spaces that students want to earn their way into. The less "schooly" and egalitarian, the better - because maybe those unmotivated students Diane mentions are not motivated precisely because the types of publication they are offered online, in the end, still feel as inauthentic as the hallway displays of yore.
Thanks for taking these young people seriously, and not just giving them a pat on the head. I know I've been snarky on a couple occasions in comments on other posts about s2oh, but it's precisely because those posts seemed to both miss the weight of the moment, and to coopt the revolution by taming it into a lower level of status in the edublogging caste system. It's nice to see you and Ryan Bretag (he wrote about s2oh on TL first, as far as I know) avoiding that tone.
It's early days for s2oh, and they have a learning curve ahead of them, but trust me: for engagement and motivation, and care for their work, they get an A+ for their work so far.
Or would, if this had anything at all to do with grades. The amazing thing, of course, is that it doesn't.
Posted by: Clay Burell | December 19, 2007 8:53 AM
Clay:
Thanks so much for adding your voice. I was very keen to see how you'd react to the interview.
I guess the bottom line for me is that I believe the technology is going to open some doors that pedagogy can't right now. Which I hope is different than saying that pedagogy is not as important as technology, but just more powerful (I'm struck by how many good things are done in education that don't lead to larger change.)
I also think that new pedagogies are going to arise because of the changes in how we communicate, collaborate, and create in the new medium of the read/write web--so maybe the bonus for me is that my belief that technology is going to create some dramatic changes also leads me to believe that we are going to be forced by this moment in histsory to have some really important discussions about learning and education, discussions that an entrenched system tends to resist.
Posted by: Steve Hargadon | December 26, 2007 6:46 PM
Steve:
Simply OUTSTANDING! Passionatley frames the issue and should serve as the "clarion call" to educators of every ilk.
The outside of the classroom experiences (Kudo's to the digitally enlightened students among us!) signal the identification of a significant trend with regard to the familiar educational "rigor, RELEVANCE, relationships" factors. In other words students will seek relevance where THEY find it. And if not in the classroom, so be it (see students testamonials)!
This is the seminal driving issue with regards to the current work of the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning initiative.
Every champion of evolved digital education and true 21st Century Digital Learning Environments should become familiar with this emerging body of work.
Additionally, we are developing a small "pilot" study program to research, investigate and create technological pedagogically DESIGNED digital learning environments (sorry for the mouthful) composed of some of the issues you have so artfully articulated, within the context of an NSF ITEST STEM GRANT beginning January 2008. The baseline research element of this granting intention addresses the American Competitiveness initiative and attendant follow-on K-12 STEM IT based solutions.
Your patience is to be admired and your anxiety is shared and understood.
With regards to the "BIG PICTURE" here are three words that have served well in several similar social/cultural, industry technological disruptions (Graphic Arts, Industrial Design, Film & Video, Corporate America IT, etc.), of the past couple of decades. CHEAPER, BETTER, FASTER! I believe in combination they are the catalyst and the "great-leveler" of all playing fields if you will, AND they are on the immediate U.S. educational horizon.
Please stay your impassioned course, you are not alone and are spot-on!
Best,
Jim
Posted by: Jim Ross | December 27, 2007 2:01 PM