World-Shaker

"A long train of failures has brought us to this unfortunate pass. In their pursuit of Federal tax dollars, our legislators have failed us by selling children out to private industries such as Pearson Education. The New York State United Teachers union has let down its membership by failing to mount a much more effective and vigorous campaign against this same costly and dangerous debacle. Finally, it is with sad reluctance that I say our own administration has been both uncommunicative and unresponsive to the concerns and needs of our staff and students by establishing testing and evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian. This situation has been exacerbated by other actions of the administration, in either refusing to call open forum meetings to discuss these pressing issues, or by so constraining the time limits of such meetings that little more than a conveying of information could take place. This lack of leadership at every level has only served to produce confusion, a loss of confidence and a dramatic and rapid decaying of morale. The repercussions of these ill-conceived policies will be telling and shall resound to the detriment of education for years to come. The analogy that this process is like building the airplane while we are flying would strike terror in the heart of anyone should it be applied to an actual airplane flight, a medical procedure, or even a home repair. Why should it be acceptable in our careers and in the education of our children?"

— Teacher’s resignation letter: ‘My profession … no longer exists’

The Arrogance of $$$

willrichardson:

Jack Schneider:

Whatever the wishes of scale-obsessed educational entrepreneurs, schools still appear to improve slowly. There are no easy solutions and no quick fixes. But this cohort of reformers, led by a posse of assertive billionaires and their allies, is united in its faith and unprecedented in its influence. As such, setbacks alone are hardly enough to challenge the way they approach school reform. And that’s a problem. Not just because they are so frequently wrong, but because each time they make the case for a new reform, they blast public school leaders, disrespect what teachers know about classrooms, disregard most of the research on school improvement, and frame our schools as failures. That isn’t common sense; that’s arrogance.

"I actually believe measuring teacher performance is critical to the process of developing quality learning and teaching. However, I think that virtually every government driven approach that uses student value-added data as the key measure is flawed and will drive teacher behaviour that will destroy the great things about education and learning."

— Read more: Teacher Performance Framework

"Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity."

—

I could quote from this article all day long.

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success →

For starters, Finland has no standardized tests. The only exception is what’s called the National Matriculation Exam, which everyone takes at the end of a voluntary upper-secondary school, roughly the equivalent of American high school.

Instead, the public school system’s teachers are trained to assess children in classrooms using independent tests they create themselves. All children receive a report card at the end of each semester, but these reports are based on individualized grading by each teacher. Periodically, the Ministry of Education tracks national progress by testing a few sample groups across a range of different schools.

As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. “There’s no word for accountability in Finnish,” he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. “Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.”

For Sahlberg what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master’s degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country. If a teacher is bad, it is the principal’s responsibility to notice and deal with it.

"We are facing a major crisis with our corrections system at 195 to 200 percent of capacity,” said Falls. “You can either spend more on the front end for education, or more on the back end for prisons."

— Alabama could save millions on future prisoners by investing more in pre-K, report says

"

But I don’t believe it! There’s much to debate!

Education in America can still be great!

Timeliness matters, we can’t sit and wait!

But we best be quick, or it could be too late.

"

— And To Think That I See It Wherever I Go - One Educator’s Dr. Seuss Inspired Lament

The 3 Hottest Trends in Education Reform →

The list is debatable, but interesting. Here’s one:

1) Adaptive Learning: Imagine a GPS for education where content and instruction is adapted to your learning style and needs. This algorithm-intensive system provides invaluable student data to teachers (a la Anderson’s recommendation), in addition to customized student learning opportunities outside the classroom. Two outstanding examples include Jose Ferreira’s Knewton, and McGraw-Hill’s Digital Products Group under the leadership of the talented Jay Chakrapati, who offers multiple products to learners and teachers across the K-12 and university spectrum. According to a new McGraw-Hill report, college students using their AL technology increased their course performance by one letter grade and increased their pass rates by 12.5%.

Sir Ken Robinson argues that the principles of alternative education need to become the foundation of our current educational systems.

(by TEDxTalks)

"By contrast we can also learn what not to do from reform in the US, whose education system is in decline. Its elements, implemented over the past two decades, are largely ideological: “market-based” reforms (the application of “business insights” to the running of schools); an emphasis on standardization and narrowing of curriculum; extensive use of external standardized assessment; fostering choice and competition among schools, often with school vouchers; making judgements based on test data and closing “failing schools”; encouraging the growth of charter schools (which don’t have teacher unions); “merit pay” and other incentives; faith that “technologically mediated instruction” will reduce costs; an overwhelming “top-down” approach which tells everyone what to do and holds them accountable for doing it."

—

…burn.

How NOT to reform American education

The State of American Education Today →

willrichardson:

Provocative essay by NYC librarian Joseph Grasso that captures the moment in ed in a nutshell. Would love to be able to hand this out at the exhibit floor at ISTE today, especially those making millions on test prep and a NCLB assessment garbage.

It is an easy truism that when simplistic…

Well-worth the read.

What We’ve Always Known About Education →

And I’m wondering, deep down, have we known all along that this idea of an “education” was really a fiction, something we created out of necessity with the implicit understanding that in a world limited by atoms, it was never really the end all, be all, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances? And if we didn’t know that, can we admit that now?

The circumstances have changed. We’re no longer constrained by atoms. For 125 years we’ve been making the learning world small, and now the world is all of a sudden big…huge. All of a sudden, the walls have been obliterated. Learning is unbound, and “an education” is next.

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mydaywithd:

“You know, keeping people from saying the word ‘gay’ isn’t going to keep people from being ‘gay.’” - Jon Stewart, May 11, 2011

“At 6:30, Angela finally pushes the test away, puts her head and her arms on her desk, and with tears in her eyes says: ‘I’m done.’”

Heartbreaking.

Bob tells the story of Angela, a fifth grade student at his school who has struggled throughout the school year with English and reading. She’s received extra help during the school day and extra tutoring after school, but if she doesn’t pass Texas’ day-long, untimed standardized test, the TAKS, she might not get to go to sixth grade. In an attempt to do her best on the test, Angela spends all day on the exam. She doesn’t finish till 6:30 at night.

Found via GOOD (they’re on Tumblr now!)

Texas High Stakes Test (by eileengood)

"At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible."

— So how do teachers cope? (via gjmueller)