Improvement, however, must not breed complacency. How do we ensure that all of Indiana’s schools — particularly those in high-need communities — have the teacher pipeline to meet the needs of the 21st century? How do we make sure that every child in the Hoosier state has strong teachers leading their classrooms, from the earliest learning days up through high school graduation.
– Eduflack writing on TeachStrong and the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship, in the South Bend (Indiana) Tribune
Many in the education reform community have been engaged in quite a debate on what reform is, who is involved, and how we should respond to one another. Eduflack wrote about this some last month, but not nearly as eloquently as others.
Over at Education Week this week, the esteemed Rick Hess took his electronic pen to the issue, noting that from his perch, education reform is the new education school. Hess makes a number of keen observations, including:
In reflecting on his our disillusion with the education school community, Hess concludes:
Yep. It all feels eerily familiar. That is a huge problem for reformers. It has undermined the healthy competition of ideas. It has weakened the ability to sustain bipartisan cooperation. It has rendered the space less hospitable to young minds who may not share the current orthodoxy. I hope that school reformers will find ways to address this. After all, at the turn of the century, the “reform” community offered an alternative to the ed school orthodoxy. I don’t know where today’s disenchanted reformers might look for refuge.
I wish it wasn’t the case, but as someone who once was on the front lines in the education reform fights, I can say that his five key observations are right on the money. And for the future of education and school improvement, that’s just a cryin’ shame.
Earlier this month, the TeachNY Advisory Council issued an important report on how New York State can transform teacher education, ensuring a pipeline of strong, dedicated teachers for generations to come.
Over at the Albany Times-Union, Arthur Levine — a member of the advisory council former president of Teachers College Columbia University, and current president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation — offers some inspiration for how the Empire State can more this report from recommendation to action.
As Levine writes:
There is compelling evidence that the recommendations will work. States like Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and New Jersey have already adopted some of the key recommendations from the TeachNY report. They have created the strong statewide partnerships necessary to transform teacher education. They have established bipartisan coalitions, led by governors and consisting of legislators, state higher education and K-12 system heads, universities, school districts, unions and other stakeholders to drive change, provide mutual support, assure accountability and enable third party-evidence based assessment.
These states have created a number of model teacher education programs of the type called for by the TeachNY report. They are characterized by four common features: high admissions standards, rigorous academic curricula, intense clinical experiences in the schools and three years of mentoring for beginning teachers.
In each case, the result has been a strong pipeline for recruiting, preparing and supporting excellent beginning teachers for hard-to-staff subjects in high-need schools. Be these urban or rural classrooms, these schools are now getting the effective science and math teachers they now need.
Give it a read!
Earlier this week, the Fordham Institute’s Robert Pondiscio wrote of “The Left’s drive to push conservatives out of education reform.” As Pondiscio notes:
Like the proverbial frog in a pot, education reformers on the political right find themselves coming to a slow boil in the cauldron of social justice activism. At meetings like New Schools Venture Fund and Pahara (a leadership development program run by the Aspen Institute), conservative reformers report feeling unwelcome, uncomfortable, and cowed into silence. There is an unmistakable and increasingly aggressive orthodoxy in mainstream education reform thought regarding issues of race, class, and gender. And it does not include conservative ideas.
The gauntlet has been thrown down. In response, Justin Cohen and a number of self-described white education reform leaders offered in an open letter:
We must admit the extraordinary flaws and shortsightedness in our own leadership for letting the field become so lopsidedly white through the early 2000s. In under-representing the communities that we hoped to serve, particularly people of color, in the leadership and decision-making processes of reform, we created a movement that lacked the ability to drive durable change.
As a recovering “white education reform leader,” I’ve actually spent a far amount of time thinking about these very issues over the past three or four years. On the specific issue, Pondiscio is correct in one important regard. Education reform is stronger when it has all political views and all ideological perspectives on the team. For every one of the anonymous conservatives he quotes in his piece, there also needs to be reformers coming from the Democrats for Education Reform side and the social justice community.
But the point Cohen makes, and it is a point that was first and strongly stoked by Leading Educators’ Jonas Chartock on his Facebook page soon after the Pondiscio piece was published, is that education reform needs to be about far more than the market-driven solutions Pondiscio writes about. It can’t be about conservatives and the wealthy funders supporting the “cause” feeling uncomfortable. It needs to be about the kids and communities that are yearning for such a solution.
During my reform days, I described this as the hearts versus minds phenomenon. Too many ed reformers are focused on the latter, believing that if one dazzles with facts and figures, and shows strong enough Excel spreadsheets of data to those resisting, that reform will happen. The data-driven, market-focused approach to reform leaves many focused on the operational and systemic sides of school improvement. We argue about school structure, and why a school should be chartered and how it should be stripped of the teachers’ unions. We call for stronger teacher evaluation tied to student test scores. We use the term equity mainly when tied to the concept of school funding, largely when it comes to comparing traditional public schools to charters. We try to position ourselves as the smartest people in the room, believing that if we use enough of that data, even the strongest of opponents will have to come to his or her senses and see our way is the only way.
But school improvement isn’t that simple, and it certainly isn’t that clean. Ultimately, the theory of change is about very real children, families, and communities, and not about columns and rows in a spreadsheet. It’s about taking financial resources from already under-resources public schools to give them to charters who had previously promised to deliver a better education for fewer dollars. It’s about attacking teachers unions, while trying to enlist parents who themselves are in labor unions and trying to convince good teachers to go to the very schools we’ve labeled as failing and hopeless. And its about believing stronger numbers and market-driven solutions can wipe away generations of institutional racism and inequities, even when we may use the term “urban” students because we are uncomfortable talking specifically about Black and brown kids.
In acknowledging their own shortcomings, Cohen et al (and I’d throw Eduflack on that list as well), admit that, as reformers, we have failed the families and communities we have purported to be fighting for. While reform has helped provide safer learning environments for many kids, and has provided greater educational opportunities for those involved, it at best mitigates some of the social obstacles so many face today. To believe that improved school opportunities for some addresses the problems of poverty and racism for far more is a line of thinking that none of us can actual subscribe to.
When I was leading a state-based education reform organization, I worked hard with the leaders of local churches to ensure their voices were heard in the legislative debate. One weekend, on the Saturday before Easter, I was in the basement of a particular church, talking to a group of pastors. As we were talking about next steps, the Bishop present turned to me and said, “You know what your problem is, you’re white.” And he was absolutely correct. No matter all that I knew, no matter how much data I came armed with, no matter how convincing and eloquent I might be, it was far easier for me to talk it than it was to live it. I would never experience what the parents and kids I was advocating for experience on a daily basis.
After that gathering, the pastors asked what I wanted from them. I went in prepared to tell them I needed their help to advocate for my agenda. But after having spent that morning listening to their concerns, my response was quite different. I told them something like, “It would be presumptuous of me to tell you what is best for your congregants. So I’m not going to do that. I would just ask that you get involved. Have your voices heard. While I’d love for those voices to agree with me, it is far more important that you be a part of this process.”
And they were. In united voice, a voice last heard in the state during the fair housing debates a few decades prior, those pastors and their congregants made clear what was the best path for education in the state. And change happened as a result.
My proudest moment from that time was being witness to those pastors and the leadership they displayed.
Looking back on that time, I wish I had done more to demonstrate the equity and understanding I often preached. I wish I had been stronger, particularly about how we built our movement. I wish I had focused more on the people and the hearts of the community, and less on the data and trying to be the smartest in the room. And I wish I could pretend that racism and poverty were something that could be eliminated by a bill signing or an ad campaign.
Chartock, Cohen, and others have engaged in an important discussion, and one that needs to continue. Until the reform community is clear on WHY it is advocating reform, what it hopes to achieve, and who it serves, we can bring the true change we are seeking. I applaud them for publicly stating what many of us have been telling ourselves for years.
Now what can I do?
I’ll proudly admit it. Eduflack is a strong advocate for data in the learning process. I make no apologies for believing that we need good research and data to determine how effective teaching and learning actually is. Without such data, we are just wishin’, hopin’, and prayin’ that we are getting it right.
Our kids deserve more than just a wish and a prayer. When it comes to their educations, we need to both trust and verify. And education data is the only way to do that.
Of course, that means educators, parents, policymakers, and others in the mix must be able to distinguish between good data collection and lousy. It means ensuring that, if data is collected, it is promptly provided to teachers so they can use it to improve teaching and learning in their classrooms. And it means eliminating those tests that are simply done to check a box, without linking back to our students and their demonstrated knowledge.
The topic of #eddata is usually (one of) the third rails of education policy. For many, assessment is the third circle of Dante’s inferno. They preach of how testing (and the data coming from it) is destroying our schools, stressing out our kids, and stripping the joy of learning from our classrooms. It is also seen as the guillotine in a results-oriented system, used to punish schools, teachers, and kids who are not where we want them to be.
In the battle for edu-hearts and minds, such a false narrative can be incredibly powerful. It can lead parents and educators to forget that data has always been an important part of our K-12 system, and that while specific tests may come and go, not testing our kids just isn’t an option. And it ignores the truth that teachers speak each and every day, that they need data to effectively lead their classrooms, and the question should be what data is collected and how are we assessing student learning (not if we assess it at all).
For the past decade, the Data Quality Campaign has worked across the country to address the false narrative and help policymakers and educators see the importance of educational data quality (thus the name). Because of their work, we see states that have created incredibly strong data systems focused on the learner. We are seeing policymakers and leaders asking the right questions when it comes to data and accountability. And we are seeing where good data is improving instruction, particularly for those communities that need it the most.
Earlier this week, DQC launched an important new report and all to action, Time to Act: Making Data Work for Students. In Time to Act, DQC lays out four key priorities when it comes to ed data:
In issuing this important call, DQC President Aimee Guidera noted that education data should be seen as a flashlight to guide teaching and learning, not as a punitive hammer for teachers and students. As correct as Guidera is, I propose we take it a step further. Ultimately, ed data needs to be our Bat signal (of course the good, Michael Keaton kind, not the Ben Affleck model), one that we signals when we need help and one that makes clear to the community at large that we are watching over those who need our help. That even in dark hours, there is an incredible collection of tools and data and commitment available on the edu-utility belt to help all those who need it.
No, are schools are no longer waiting for Superman. Batman has taught us the right tools can turn a regular guy into a superhero. When that ed data light is shown in the right way, it can illuminate the path to help all educators and kids succeed. We need to make sure that that light is as strong as possible, equipping all educators with the tools to be the superheroes they are.
There is no question that the rhetoric (or supposed rhetoric) of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has taken on a life of its own. The perception of Trump’s campaign words seems to have generated extreme emotions on both sides of the political spectrum.
But when one takes a closer look at some of his prepared remarks, we actually see a political candidate who tries to walk the middle ground. A businessman who enjoys talking in the collective “we” and focuses largely on positive themes. Don’t believe me, take a look at some of his prepared remarks.
Yes, Trump’s education platform is a virtual blank slate. Being opposed to the Common Core, when the president really has nothing to do with its implementation, is hardly administration-leading policy. But even if we don’t know “what” education policy under Trump may look like, we have a good sense of “how” he would talk about it, particularly in the early going.
Trump’s celebratory remarks following his wins on Super Tuesday earlier this month provide the perfect template for a beginning Trump education policy speech. So let’s use it as an education speech Mad Lib, if you will. Just imagine, when the references to the economy and the campaign are substituted with education-specific content, what he’d sound like (with edu-edits to the actual Trump speech in italics). The result is surprising, and quite in line with the current edu-debates:
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I appreciate all that parents are doing to help make American public education great again.
I want to congratulate Ben Carson on his confirmation as my Education Secretary. He worked hard, I know how hard he worked actually, so I congratulate him and look forward to all we can now do working together.
We are going to make American education great again, folks. We’re going to make it great again.
I’ve watched the leaders of our teachers’ unions talking about how teacher pay is poor and teacher working conditions are poor and everything’s poor and everyone is doing badly, but that they are going to fix it. The NEA and AFT have been saying the same thing for so long long. If they haven’t straightened it out by now, they aren’t going to straighten it out in the next four years. Our schools are just going to become worse and worse.
The unions say they want to make American public education whole again, and I’m trying to figure out what that is all about. Make American public education great again is going to be much better than making American public education whole again.
This is going to be a tough four years for Randi and Lily. They had a tough election in November, but worked hard. They spent a lot of money. But we won the election, despite them. I know that a lot of groups, a lot of the special interests and a lot of the lobbyists and the people that want to have their little elected officials do exactly as they want. They’re going to continue to put millions into efforts to try and stop my policies. I think that’s fine. As far as I’m concerned, it’s fine. Had Hillary won, the unions and their lobbyists would have had total control. But we saw what happened.
Our win was just a great win because America is a place that is just spectacular. America is an amazing place to go to school. It’s been amazing to see so many focused on improving our schools. It’s been just so beautiful to watch this administration grow and to watch it grow so strongly, so quickly.
Throughout the campaign, some questioned how great this administration would be. They questioned the great company we built, and whether we would be able to put that same ability into doing something for our nation. Our nation is in serious trouble. We’re being chilled on student performance, absolutely destroyed. China is just taking advantage of us. I have nothing against China. I have great respect for China, but their teachers are too smart for our teachers. Our teachers don’t have a clue, and the student performance gaps just continue to grow. The learning gaps seen on TIMSS and PISA are just too much. It won’t be that way for much longer. We have the greatest education leaders in the world in my administration and, believe me, we’re going to redo how we teach our kids and it’s going to be a thing of beauty.
You look at countries like China, Finland, Canada, where they’re killing us on international benchmarks, absolutely destroying us on these tests. They are destroying us in terms of student performance in subjects like science and math. Even Poland is killing us on these tests. Poland. We have to stop it, folks. I know how to stop it. We are going to create schools for the 21st century economy. We are going to create schools like you’ve never seen. We are going to improve student test scores. I have a plan that parents and teachers and so many others think is the best plan they’ve seen. We’re going to improve learning for the middle class. Kids of middle class parents have been forgotten in our education debates. These kids were the predominant factor in making our country into a country that we all love so much and we’re all so proud of, but we’ve forgotten the middle class. So we are going to improve their schools and get more of them to college. Get more of them into good jobs.
We’re going to improve our schools. You look at all of those families that are moving out of their neighborhoods. When you see the Andersons moving from Detroit and you see so many other families now constantly moving. They used to move because the parents got better-paying jobs. Now they are moving to get away from failing schools. Doesn’t matter what part of the country they live in, even here in fabulous New York City. Ben understands the problem, fully understands. Families are leaving from places where they and their parents used to go to school into other communities looking for better. We shouldn’t let that happen.
We’ve lost high-quality schools. We’ve lost our good schools. Millions and millions of students, thousands and thousands of schools. We are losing so much. We can’t let that happen.
I tell the story often about a friend of mine with three children. He always intended to send them to the same community school that he and his wife attended in New York City. And recently, he and his wife decided to send their kids to a charter school. Charter schools value education so much that it is virtually impossible for the local public school to compete. I don’t want that to happen. That’s not going to happen. Every school should be like a charter school.
As parents, we have tremendous power over everybody because we are really the source of decisions. We have great, great power. The problem is we have politicians and teachers unions who truly, truly, truly don’t know what they’re doing. So we’re going to work very, very hard.
I’m so honored to be here today. It takes tremendous courage for parents to commit to changing their schools. Many of us have never done this before. We’ve focused on our own jobs and our own families. This is something we’ve never done, but we all felt we have to do it. When you look at the incompetence of the public schools and the state tests, where are spending billions of dollars and we get absolutely nothing. When you look at all of the problems our schools have and you look at our pool of good, committed teachers, which is really being depleted, rapidly depleted. We’re going to make our schools better and stronger than every before, and nobody, nobody, nobody is going to mess with us, folks, nobody.
Together, we are going to make American public education great again.
Parent empowerment. Stronger performance on international benchmarks. Standing up the the unions and those who lobby for the unions. It’s like many a speech we have heard before. And no mentions of walls at all …
This week, the Center for American Progress released a new report, “A Look at the Education Crisis: Tests, Standards, and the Future of of American Education.” In it, the researchers at CAP take a look at recent NAEP data to see if the state of public education is as bad as some say or on a rocketing upward trajectory as others say (guess it really depends on who your friends or online trolls are).
USA Today’s Greg Toppo has a great summary of the report here. We’ve all seen that high school graduation rates are at all-time highs. But it is hard to celebrate such a statistic when we still see that only one in five low-income fourth graders achieved reading proficiency on NAEP. Or that only 52 percent of “nonpoor” fourth graders were able to hit that proficient mark.
It doesn’t get better for eighth graders in reading. Only a third of them are proficient in cities like Charlotte, Austin, Miami, and San Diego. Boston comes it at only 28 percent proficient. NYC 27 percent. Chicago 24 percent. Philly 16 percent. Cleveland 11 percent. And Detroit at only 7 percent.
So why do these eighth grade numbers matter so much? Most of the students in the eighth grade NAEP sample never attended school when Reading First was law of the land. Sure, they may have benefited from textbooks that were developed to meet RF requirements years prior. And some of their teachers may have utilized the PD and supports they received during the height of RF. But each of these kids has now gone through eight or so years of public school where scientifically based reading instruction was not demanded nor expected.
These latest NAEP numbers, and the analysis from CAP make one thing very clear. We need scientifically based reading instruction in the classroom. Our teachers need to be prepared for it. Our elementary schools need to be based around it. Our students need to be instructed in it. And our families need to know it when they see it (and know when they aren’t seeing it in their community schools).
Yes, Reading First had implementation issues. Yes, at times it was more steel hammer than velvet glove. But can we really say we shouldn’t be using what is known to be effective in teaching kids to read? Can we really say, with all the data that we have, that early reading instruction based on phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension isn’t the correct path? Can we really say a a philosophical approach to reading trumps and research-based instructional approach? And can we really say we should’t be using what is proven effective in the classroom?
For those who condemn the Common Core’s emphasis on non-fiction texts, it is ridiculous to assume that a low-income eighth grader can read the rich literature sought when only a third of them are reading proficient in the first place.
When scientifically based reading instruction became the law of the land in 2002, it was an approach that was embraced by all comers. The teachers unions. The principals groups. The superintendents. The teacher education community. The business community. All saw the value in using proven-effective approaches to instruction. All saw the need to do something to improve literacy, particularly with low-income learners. All embraced SBRR.
We need to find that solidarity again. The most recent eighth grade NAEP scores show us that taking a different path has failed too many kids … again. We need to remember that literacy is not, or at least shouldn’t be, a political issue. Whether we want all kids to pass a high-stakes, state-based, standards-aligned exam or we want all children to find a love for learning and literature, the ability to read is a non-negotiable.
While Reading First has now been relegated to the history books for the past decade, we cannot and should not ignore the hundreds of thousands of research studies that showed the effectiveness of scientifically based instruction. We cannot and should not ignore the reality that, when SBRR was in full effect in the early to mid 2000s, reading proficiency rates were on the rise, both with the low-income students the program targeted and other learners who benefited from the focus on SBRR-based instructional materials and PD. And we cannot and should not ignore that far too many kids — particularly those that are black, brown, or low-income — are struggling when it comes to reading … and we know just what should be done to help them.
Over the holiday break, Kyle Spencer of The New York Times reported on how testing and a school district’s effort to ease student pressures has led to an “ethnic divide” in the community. It is an interesting read, a read that taps into many of the issues and concerns that have been rippling through public education in recent years.
But Spencer’s piece only tells a part of the story. How does Eduflack know? Because the edu-kids are students in the New Jersey district profiled by the Times. Currently, I have a fourth grader in an upper elementary school and a third grader in a lower elementary school. I wish it were as simple as the Times tried to make it seem.
For instance:
In criticizing the district superintendent’s efforts to address the “whole child,” one parent is quoted by the Times as saying, “if children are to learn and grow, they need experiences.”
She is absolutely right. But those experiences require more than six hours in a classroom and three hours a homework a day, coupled with test prep and some time for extra-curricular foreign language classes and an instrument. (and for those who think I am exaggerating, let me introduce you to a girl who was in my daughter’s second grade last year). They need experiences that address both academic development and social-emotional learning. They need experiences that allow them to be kids, before they have to get into the cut-throat world of adulthood so many of their parents are pushing them into.
Since The New York Times article has come out, there has been a lot of criticism of Superintendent Aderhold and his focus on the “whole child.” Some have attacked him for dumbing down the district and denying students an opportunity to succeed. Others are appalled that he would impose his own vision for the district over the will of the parents. But maybe, just maybe, the supe is doing exactly what he should be doing, and exactly what we need from those leading our schools.
Dr. Aderhold is putting the needs of the children first. He is ensuring that educators have a voice, a real voice, in the direction of the public schools. He is showing there is more to student development and growth that reading, writing, and arithmetic. And he is working to demonstrate that the quality of a public education is about more than how many AP classes one takes, now many community college courses a high schooler enrolls in over the summers, and how many extra hours of math a fourth grader “earns” by getting a slot in a prized G&T program.
In the process, he might just be ensuring that elementary school kids get a little more time to ride their bikes and play a video game or two. He might just help a few more kids find the time to play baseball or take gymnastics. And he may even help more families spend evening time together around a dinner table, talking and exploring, rather than just working through the hours of homework expected of a middle schooler these days.
All students deserve highly skilled, well-prepared teachers. In order to build the teaching profession that students deserve, maximize recruitment, increase diversity, and raise the bar for quality preparation, the front end of a coherent teaching pipeline must begin in secondary education.
Make sense? Agree that the current pipelines for teacher recruitment are insufficient? Believe that we need to do a better job to show today’s high school kids that teaching should be a desired career? Then you might just believe in Educators Rising.
If you don’t agree with the above statement, or aren’t sure if you do, you need to take a closer look at the stats. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of new teachers report that they graduated from their preparation programs unprepared. One-third of teachers leave the profession in their first three years. And teacher turnover is highest — and student achievement is lowest — at schools with high levels of poverty. At the same time, projections say we will need to hire 1.5 million new teachers by 2020 (that’s almost half the teaching workforce, for those keeping count).
Dear ol’ Eduflack is proud to be a part of Educators Rising, a new initiative powered by PDK. Educators Rising offers a few simple, yet audacious goals:
To work toward these goals, Educators Rising is creating a standards committee to help determine what teacher preparation looks like for students in secondary school. Or more simply, what should high school kids know and be able to do if they want to be on the path of becoming effective educators?
PDK is now soliciting applications to serve on that Educators Rising Standards Committee. The application, along with additional details, can be found at: https://www.educatorsrising.org/pages/standards-committee
For those educators who want to improve the profession, for those educators who want to see more young people aspire to be teachers, for those educators who want to do something about the negative narrative surrounding teachers and teaching, Educators Rising and this committee can be a very specific answer to an important problem.
So I ask Eduflack readers to share the application with any educators you think could contribute to the discussion and the creation of meaningful standards. The only way to have strong, effective standards is to have strong, effective teachers involved.
Throughout the years, I’ve heard a lot of ridiculous statements made in efforts to thwart education reform initiatives and to block efforts designed to provide all kids with access to a world-class public education.
I’ve heard legislators say it isn’t their problem because they represent districts without black and brown kids. I’ve heard the business community say we don’t want to give kids too many high-level skills, out of fear that they won’t be satisfied working in a blue-collar job for three or four decades. I’ve heard teachers tell parents to “sit down and shut up,” saying they had no business being part of discussion of education reform. And I’ve heard parents waxing eloquently about just going back to the “good ol’ days.” Yes, I’ve heard it all.
And I’ve also said my fair share of hyperbolic statements, of attacks on those who didn’t necessarily deserve to be attacked. Of making policy fights personal. All in the name of progress and improving our public schools.
But my jaw just about hit the floor when I saw an old adversary, former Connecticut State Sen. Don Williams, make the most outrageous of outrageous statements in defense of the status quo. A few years back, Williams retired from the Connecticut General Assembly, taking a job with the Connecticut Education Association. (I’ll be honest, during my years in Connecticut ed reform, I assumed that Williams was already working for the CEA, based on his education positions.)
Earlier this week, as a CEA spokesman, Williams was railing on all things reform. speaking on WNHH radio, and as reported by the New Haven Independent, he held nothing back. Williams attacked testing. He attacked the “corporatization” of our public schools. He attacked the cost of college. And he did all of it, trying to wrap himself in the flag and American and all that is good and holy in the United States. Nothing most of us haven’t heard before.
Then he dropped the following, “Computers create achievement gap.” Yes, the Honorable Don Williams attacked technology and computers in the schools, blaming them for the achievement gaps that have existed well before technology was ever introduced into a public school classroom.
Let’s go through the roster. When it comes to the achievement gap, charter schools are to blame. And private philanthropy. And testing. And Common Core. And poverty, please don’t forget poverty. And now computers are to blame as well.
Are we serious? Does the CEA, and by extension, the National Education Association, really believe that technology is to blame for the achievement gap? Do they agree, as Williams says, that when we “digitize our children” we make it impossible for them to become problem solvers? And does the NEA really believe that today’s urban schools are “drilling and spending time on test prep instead of enrichment?”
I get that we are all trying to score rhetorical points in a battle that should be about what is best for kids. But in a 21st century learning environment, can we honestly say technology is bad for classrooms, particularly for high-need classrooms?
Education technology is the great equalizer. It brings knowledge and resources into classrooms that otherwise would be without. It allows a diverse student body to learn in diverse ways. It ensures we aren’t deskilling and unplugging our 21st century kids. At its very heart, edtech is the answer to our achievement, opportunity, and resource gap problems we seek to solve, not the cause.
The time for blame games needs to come to an end. We have spent too much time, wasted too much breath, and spread too much electronic ink on the negative attack. All the fighting back and forth is doing absolutely nothing to help kids who need safe, good schools. All the vitriol does zero to close those gaps we speak so much of, and does nothing more than letting just another generation of students fall through the cracks as the adults protect their own interests.
Senator Williams, I’ve seen the power of technology to transform high-need schools and to empower teachers to deliver world-class educations to all students. It’s sad that you and the CEA have now added technology and computers to the enemies list when it comes protecting public education.
Eduflack By Patrick R. Riccards 