higher ed

Revisiting Four Key EduConcerns for a New Presidential Administration

Eduflack accountability, assessment, higher ed, Presidential campaign, reform, Teacher Education

Back in January, Eduflack wrote for Education Post on the four key education concerns the few dozen folks seeking the presidency need to consider. More than 10 months later, these four issues were barely touched in the 2016 campaign at almost every level. But they remain essential, particularly as President-elect Trump begins to shape his education policy and chooses a leader to head his U.S. Department of Education.

The four areas I continue to hope we focus on include:

  1. The proper federal/state role when it comes to education policy;
  2. 21st century education and real 21st century learning;
  3. Accountability, and how to effectively hold education institutions, particularly colleges and universities, accountable; and
  4. The future of teacher education.

In each of these areas, I pose a number of questions that we must consider. Each question was relevant at the start of the calendar year. Each is relevant today. And each will be even more relevant at the start of a new administration and a new Congress.

I just hope someone (or someones) is starting to explore answers and responses.

 

 

Blocking Jeffersonian Lessons at Mr. Jefferson’s University

Eduflack ACT, civics, higher ed

Loyal readers of Eduflack know that I am a proud alumnus of the University of Virginia. As a Wahoo, I spent my college years believing the University’s founder was a deity. We spoke of Mr. Jefferson has if he had just stepped away to grab some lunch on the Corner. We revered the Jeffersonian ideal and what we thought it stood for.

In recent years, it hasn’t been so popular to be a fan of Thomas (nor has it been particularly popular for Eduflack to have many of the heroes he has, as I wrote about last year.) In our zeal to judge leaders of the past by today’s standards, we are quick to condemn.

I get that Thomas Jefferson is a complicated figure in our history. And I get that he is completely dissed (and mischaracterized) in the smash Broadway hit Hamilton. But Jefferson is a Founding Father. He was our third president. He helped expand the fledgling United States into the country that we largely recognize today.

Despite all of that, he noted three accomplishments on his tombstone, which reads, “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.”

Yes, founding U.Va. was one of the Jefferson’s top three accomplishments, more significant to him that serving as president. Thomas Jefferson is the University of Virginia, and U.Va. is TJ.

So it was shocking to see a group of University professors write to U.Va. President Sullivan asking that she stop quoting the University’s founder and father. My alma mater, The Cavalier Daily, reports that these professors noted:

We would like for our administration to understand that although some members of this community may have come to this university because of Thomas Jefferson’s legacy, others of us came here in spite of it. For many of us, the inclusion of Jefferson quotations in these e-mails undermines the message of unity, equality and civility that you are attempting to convey.

Almost a year to the day, I wrote about how college campuses need to stop being so cavalier about First Amendment rights. That we needed to stop promoting this “do as I say, not as I do” approach to free speech, recognizing that such rights are absolute and not based on what an individual may find in contrast to their personal life mission or sensibilities.

I’m not naive. I get that many these days would not put Jefferson on their personal Mount Rushmores. But I would hope that those individuals would also recognize that Jefferson’s stands as one of the most influential writers and thinkers in the founding of this nation. I’d particularly hope that college professors, particularly those at Mr. Jefferson’s University, could respect the words of Jefferson helped establish this nation, helped shape modern thinking on political liberty, and that cemented the divisions between church and state.

I’d also hope that those who take no issue in drawing a paycheck from Mr. Jefferson’s University yet take every issue with his words would be a little more open-minded about reading some of the words he wrote nearly a quarter of a millennia ago.

As a student at the U.Va., I spent more hours than I can count working at The Cavalier Daily, the independent daily student newspaper of Mr. Jefferson’s University. Each morning, we would publish a new edition under some poignant words written by Jefferson:

“For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”

These words become particularly important in light of President Sullivan’s letter and her message of bringing the University community together. It is unfortunate that the sensitivities of some professors would seek to shut down such a dialogue by finding offense in the words of one messenger, the most important messenger in the University’s history.

We can only hope that reason continues to thrive at the University of Virginia, and that the lessons of its founder can be used to lead important discussions and guide equally important actions.

Seeking to restrict speech by removing Jeffersonian quotes from communications is an affront to the lessons of freedom and liberty that the University of Virginia was built on, and of ideals we would hope college professors were teaching on campuses throughout the country.

Who Are We To Argue with #TeacherEd Magic Eight Ball?

Eduflack higher ed, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

Is the future of teacher education a competency-based model focused on ensuring prospective teachers are able to do and apply everything they have learned? Over at Inside Philanthropy, Tracey DeFrancesco looks at that question, highlighting some of the work currently being done by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and its Woodrow Wilson Academy of Teaching and Learning.

As DeFrancesco writes about the WW Academy:

So can this dual academy/lab track break new ground in training methods to have a lasting impact on American education? Considering the backing from funders, a partnership with MIT, and buy-in from school districts, a shake of the Magic Eightball says, “Signs point to yes.” The main premise, here, is to prepare the STEM teachers that our schools so desperately need by reimagining training models that were developed in a different paradigm. Times have changed, and we’re hoping a fresh take will get results.

The full article, including an interview with yours truly, is worth the read. The future of teacher education may very well be now.

 

 

“A New Compact for Teaching and Learning”

Eduflack higher ed, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

There is little question that the edu-world is experiencing a time of transition. Whether one is talking about testing and assessment, socio-economic issues, instructional expectations, teacher preparation, design of the school or the school day, or virtually any other issue that touches today’s students, one thing is clear. The schools, teaching, and learning of the future will likely bear little resemblance to those we experienced when we were young learners.

Earlier this week, NCTAF released What Matters Now: A New Compact for Teaching and Learning. In its call to action, NCTAF issued a call to action focused on six key reccs designed to help shift the field toward “more engaging and relevant teaching and learning for all.” These recommendations include:

  1. Policymakers should establish and broadly communicate a new compact with teachers
  2. Every state should establish a Commission on teaching, learning, and the State’s Future
  3. States and districts should codify and track whether all schools are “organized for success”
  4. Teacher preparation should be more relevant and clinically-based
  5. States should support all new teachers with multi-year induction and high-quality mentoring
  6. Education leaders should evaluate all professional learning for responsiveness and effectiveness

The full report is well worth the read. In a era of relative doom and gloom, NCTAF provides a positive view of both what is possible and what is necessary. All of the areas provided above are of importance to the future of both teaching and learning. But dear ol’ Eduflack wants to throw a spotlight on NCTAF’s specific thinking with regard to buckets four and five — teacher and ed and teacher mentoring.

Specifically, when it comes to teacher prep, the report offers :

To stem chronic shortages and turnover and to improve teachers’ experience and efficacy, it is particularly important that pre-service teachers gain significant experience with real classrooms. Therefore,

  • Teacher preparation should include a year of clinical experience
  • Coursework should include social-emotional as well as academic learning, and experience in culturally knowledgeable and responsive practices
  • Performance assessments, proven to be a reliable way to ensure that beginning teachers are competent to lead a classroom, should be used as a strong indicator of teacher readiness
  • Teacher preparation programs and school districts need to invest in and strengthen their partnerships to improve teacher candidates’ effectiveness and retention

And when it comes to supporting those new to the teaching profession, NCTAF provides the following ideas:

New teacher induction and mentoring leads to improved teacher retention, satisfaction, and efficacy. Yet currently only a few states provide this critical foundation for their teachers. States should:

  • • Require a multi-year induction program as a licensure requirement
    • Provide sustained program funding
    • Require multi-year mentoring, with carefully selected and trained mentors
    • Consider additional release time for new teachers as is done in other countries
    • Consider pilot programs that provide differentiated induction for teachers from different pathways

From a strong clinical experience to multi-year mentoring, these are important pieces that must be factored into the future of teacher preparation and educator development. They are items that many of the organizations I work with, from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation to TeachStrong, are focusing on. And they are issues we need to spend more time not only talking about, but actually doing.

(Full disclosure, Eduflack previously worked for NCTAF, but it was many, many ages ago.)

Vote Now: Teaching CAN Be a Game!

Eduflack higher ed, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

It’s that time of year again, when the good folks at SXSWedu open up the online polling places and let all of us cast our ballots for those sessions we think would make for an interesting, compelling, and valuable SXSWedu.

Yes, the #SXSW2017 Panel Picker is now open. And dear ol’ Eduflack respectfully requests that you cast your ballot (and you can vote for as many sessions as you want, so no need to make choice while denying another) for: Think Preparing Teachers Is a Game? It Can Be.

In this session, my friends from MIT, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the WW Academy of Teaching and Learning will discuss how gaming — including role plays, virtual reality, and other scenarios — can be used to better engage prospective teachers and improve teacher education programs. You’ll even hear how 21st century gaming doesn’t just mean online and digital. Old school gaming with cards and boards and dice can be just as effective.

And if one wants to play edubuzzword bingo, they will also explore how gaming can create a next generation of career teachers prepared to lead classrooms focused on personalized learning and cognitive science.

You have the Eduflack guarantee it will be a worthwhile session. And it should also prove the perfect venue to see, first hand, some of the teacher-focused games MIT and the WW Academy are currently developing.

Vote early, vote often. And please vote for this session. All you need to do is click here and then click on the thumbs up. Easy, peasy.

 

 

Trump U and the “Educated” Higher Ed Consumer

Eduflack accountability, higher ed, Presidential campaign

For those following the 2016 Republican presidential primaries (and let’s face it, who isn’t?) one of the hot topics is the now-defunct Trump University and its promises to make all Trump U students successful captains of the real estate industry simply by taking a series of self-guided courses and ballroom seminars.

Over at Politico, Kimberly Hefling and Maggie Severns have a great article on Trump U and the allegations made against it. It notes pressure tactics to get students to buy more and more expensive courses. It even details the story of one individual who tapped $60,000 in money she didn’t have to take course after course at Trump U.

Eduflack recognizes that the tale of Trump U makes for wonderful campaign commercial fodder and zingers at debates. I’ll acknowledge it was disingenuous to use the name “university” for something that was MOOC at best or late-night infomercial at worst. And I’ll grant that all of this happened well before MOOCs truly took hold and before concerns at places like Corinthian Colleges came to light.

But is what Trump University tried to tap into much different than what we see generally in higher education, or in for-profit higher ed in particular? The promises of a better life with more courses.  The “admissions” counselors pushing hard to get potential students to enroll in more and more courses. Students enrolling in programs well beyond their financial means and the institutions knowing it. Degrees and courses that will have no impact on the ability to get a job or increase future earnings.

No, I’m not defending Trump U and its tactics. But we shouldn’t be shocked by its approach. We have many for-profit colleges that offer “higher education” to students who never otherwise would be able to enroll at a college or university, all with the promise of bettering their lives and their families futures.

We have traditional universities where fewer than six in 10 students earn their bachelor’s degrees in six years. That leaves more than 40 percent of students with thousands in student loan debts and no degree with which to secure future employment.

So why should we be surprised with a higher education business venture offering to teach those seeking a better life the potential path to success, one that begins with a single course and continues to larger, more grandiose packages for those truly committed?

Ultimately, these institutions, whether the a for-profit storefront or the traditional state college, are providing consumers (the students) with what they are asking for. And most do so within the rules set by both the licensing body (usually the state) and the regional accreditors.

If we want to find fault, we need to direct it toward the students themselves. As our society has shifted to a belief that all individuals need college to be successful in life, we have failed to emphasize the need to be an “educated” consumer when it comes to higher education. We believe college is college, that any postsecondary ed is better than none.

Whether one is enrolling in Harvard or Trump U, we need to get better about asking real questions about our pursuit of higher education. What is the actual graduation/completion rate? What is the actual cost of degree? What is the job placement rate in careers related to major? How long does a graduate stay in the field of choice? What are the job prospects and earning potential in that field? Would successful graduates in that field do it over again, given the choice?

Until we ask those questions and take the answers to determine the greatest benefit to us as individuals, we shouldn’t be surprised that a Saturday afternoon course and a photo with a cardboard cutout is seen as a viable path for “postsecondary education.”

Sure, $60K is an awful lot of money for some pre-MOOC MOOCs in real estate. But is it that different than taking out $50K in loans to have four majors in three years, while securing just three semesters of actual college credit? At least Trump U students got a hat with their tuition.

 

Going Back to College, College, College …

Eduflack higher ed, Online Education, Presidential campaign, Students

Tributes to LL Cool J (back when he was a rapper) aside, earlier this week Eduflack has the honor and privilege to spend a little time up at Williams College to guest talk at Williams’ Political Leadership course.

The course is taught each year by Jane Swift, the former governor of Massachusetts and the CEO of the terrific Middlebury Interactive Languages. I’ll go on the record and declare I am a HUUGE fan of Governor Swift. That might surprise some, who remember that back in the day I ran a congressional campaign where she was the opponent and I did and said things in the heat of the campaign that I wish I could do over, but it is true. The good governor and I reconnected about a decade ago, after she transitioned from being chief executive of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and was focusing her enormous energies on her passions of education and education technology.

For all the folks who bemoan edtech and how online learning has stripped all meaning from classroom instruction and has kids focused on rote memorization of math and English items for the state test, take a look at what Swift has built up at Middlebury. She and her team have been able to harness the power of interactive technologies to teach foreign language to students across the nation. And they have done it in ways that better prepares the learners for the 21st century, both in their language fluency and in their approach to learning in general.

But I digress. Back to Williamstown and the textbook New England college campus at Williams. As part of Political Leadership (LEAD 250/PSCI 205), this week’s class was focused on trends and tactics when it comes to establishing a political narrative. I was fortunate enough to spend nearly four hours with students in the class. And I was amazed by what I learned from the students.

We can be so quick to stereotype students, particularly in the context of politics. It doesn’t help when it is on a campus like Williams, that carries a long-standing reputation for liberalism. But I found students who represented the political spectrum. More importantly, I engaged with students who had deep reasons for their political beliefs. Those who could distinguish the different forms of feminism when explaining why they may be for or against Hillary Clinton. Those who didn’t share the distain for the fly-over states that we hear from so many political prognosticators. Those who had looked through the talking points of all of the viable candidates to really drill down on how they would lead, who was advising them, and who would be at their sides in a new presidential administration.

What I heard was what “educated voters” continue to say is absent — a new generation of voters who are passionate about issues, inquisitive about candidates, and determined to be informed as to both how politics and policy work. And it helped that these students were also interested in education policy, particularly how it should impact politics but rarely does.

It’s very easy to voice frustration with “today’s college students.” Demands for free college, safe spaces, and the like make it very easy to caricature those on our college campuses. But my visit to Williams gave me hope. I saw the sort of students I wished I had been during my own postsecondary experience. I saw them questioning and pushing back on convention. I saw them seeking to better understand a political system that has largely either taken them for granted or written them off. I saw the future.

 

Teacher Education’s “Black Box”

Eduflack higher ed, Teacher Education, teachers, Woodrow Wilson

Over at Real Clear Education, I have a new piece that looks at two recent research studies on innovation in teacher education, one of which proclaims significant research is needed when it comes to understanding what good teaching is. As I write, such data really isn’t needed. The real challenge is how we get the research we do know into classrooms, both at the K-12 and at the postsecondary levels.

In my essay, I issue a call to focus teacher preparation efforts both on what is known and what a prospective teacher is able to do with it. We need to move beyond teaching “at” someone and instead ensure the student — or the prospective teacher — is able to take that new knowledge and apply it. Even more simply, we need a competency-based approach to teacher education.

As I write:

There is nothing magical about 36 credit hours of graduate education that ensures one will be an effective teacher. Instead, it is about understanding content and pedagogy, as well as being able to put that understanding to use in a classroom of your own.

That means that teacher preparation must begin to shift from a “time served” model to competency-based one. It means more time spent demonstrating skills in a K-12 classroom than sitting in a lecture hall. It means recognizing that the prospective teacher takes priority over the process, appreciating what an educator is bringing to the process and then building personalized approaches to complete preparation. And it means continually acquiring competencies well after the initial licensure is completed.

Some may say the concept of throwing out the clock and the credit hour is controversial. But it is an idea that is both needed and proven. And it is an effort I am proud to be focusing on as part of my work at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.

Happy reading!

 

Can We Have a Little Prez Dialogue on Education Issues?

Eduflack accountability, assessment, CCSS, higher ed, Parents, Presidential campaign, Teacher Education, teachers

While it may be fun to some to watch the current cross between kabuki theater and Keeping Up With the Kardashians (otherwise known as the presidential campaigns), it is an understatement to say that the current crew of candidates seem to be a little light on policies and big issue discussions (unless you count walls and guns).

Over at Education Post, I make my plea for the candidates to get serious about a little education policy speak. In fact, I urge them to move beyond the low-hanging fruit of being anti-Common Core and pro-free college and instead offer a little insight into some deeper edu-issues that demonstrate what they really think of the role of instruction and learning in our society and our democracy.

After highlighting topics (and offering some specific questions) on topics such as the federal/state role in education, competency-based education, the true meaning of accountability, and the future of educator preparation, I conclude:

It is not enough to simply seek to “disrupt” current systems or to shift authority from one entity to another. Instead, the nation needs a clear vision of accountability, teacher preparation, modes of learning and expectations for all.

Collectively, we must work to identify those areas of significant agreement, while highlighting those topics that may require additional discussion and exploration. This work is not limited to local communities or states or Congress. It requires leadership at all levels, particularly from those seeking the presidency.

For more than a decade, we’ve seen the power of presidents who offer those strong visions. Whether through the bully pulpit or legislative action, whether we agree or disagree, presidents can impact policy at both the highest and most grassroots of levels. With public education affecting everything from home prices to tax coffers to social program costs, don’t voters deserve more than just knowing if a candidate is against common standards and for college education?

Give the whole piece a read. What am I missing? What edu-discussions will help us look beyond the talking point and more toward the true thinking (and priorities) of the future leader of the free world?

 

Teaching True Meaning of First Amendment Rights

Eduflack equity, higher ed, race, Students

For weeks, Eduflack has been biting his tongue on the rash of intolerance offered in the name of tolerance on our college campuses. Too many stories of free speech being squashed in the name of “safe zones,” too many instances of aspiring “activists” believing Constitutional rights only apply to those individuals and causes that one completely agrees with.

Over at Medium this week, I wrote about our desperate need for today’s college students to truly understand the rights that they claim to embrace. Quoting everything from the First Amendment to President Andy Shepherd’s monologue from the movie, The American President, I just had my “I’m mad as hell” moment.

As I wrote:

But a funny thing happened between a generation known for its passionate advocacy for civil rights and an end to the Vietnam War and now. Today, too many see those freedoms and speech and assembly with self-inflicted blinders, believing such rights are meant to apply only to those who agree with us.

As originally conceived, the First Amendment was written to ensure a protected place for reasoned dissent in our new nation. Today, it is used as a weapon to protect against disagreement or opposing viewpoints and silence those who may see things differently.

When, exactly, did we allow the First Amendment to be bastardized to prevent civil discourse and public debate? When, exactly, did we determine it was OK to defend free speech, but only if it was speech we agreed with?

I know it is Thanksgiving week and all, but give it a read. We should all be thankful for our rights, whether we are red, blue, or purple with sparkly pink polka dots.