technology

The Importance of Smart Parents

Eduflack Dadprovement, Parents, technology

Earlier this year, I shared a post I had written for Huffington Post, as part of Getting Smart’s Smart Parent series. In it, I wrote about the importance of fathers being actively involved in their kids’ lives. That included their academic/school lives. From my perspective (and I can only write about what I’ve experienced with my own two kids), technology can’t replace an involved parent. But an involved parent can dramatically increase the impact of ed tech, particularly as it relates to student learning.

At the time, I wrote:

But the real power of the technology comes from understanding what is happening in class, from seeing my kids’ strengths and knowing how to supplement what is happening. It comes from seeing where they struggle and embracing where they soar. Such determinations can’t be made from a report card or an email from the teacher or a quick review of the evening’s homework. They require hands-on knowledge that comes from being in the classroom, watching the learning process.

That essay, along with a great number of other pieces Getting Smart inspired for its Smart Parents series, is now part of a new book coming out soon. The book is available for pre-order now, and you can learn more about it here.

Big thanks to Getting Smart, Huffington Post, and the Nellie Mae Education Foundation for making this book happen and for advocating for such an important (and often neglected) topic–the role of parents in the educational development of children.

When asked why this book and project was so important, I told Tom Vander Ark and company:

There is nothing more powerful than an engaged, informed parent. Smart Parents: Parenting for Powerful Learning provides all families – regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or zip code — the tools and resources they need to be effective advocates and inspiring teachers for their kids. Successful learners need smart parents supporting and encouraging them.

And I meant every word. Parents, pre-order, receive, and then read the book. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

#Studentdata and #highered

Eduflack accountability, assessment, eddata, higher ed, technology

We spend so much time talking about the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (or the replacement of NCLB, whichever term you prefer), that we can forget that reauthorization of the Higher Education Act is waiting in the wings as well.

Earlier this spring, Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate HELP Committee, issued a series of white papers on some of the top issues the Senate would consider as it began to dig into HEA reauth. One of those topics was consumer information, what many of us better know as student data.

Last week, I submitted a formal response to the Senate’s higher education student data call. In doing so, I noted: “As a nation, we have long said that information is power, using the call for greater knowledge to rally support for education. But our educational infrastructure itself has not provided the powerful information we need. Higher education has fallen short in its ability to both capture and apply data that can be used to improve how students learn, how they are taught, and how we measure it.”

This should come as no surprise. In talking about the work of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and its focus on linking student outcome data to determine the effectiveness of its own programs I stated:

All have a right to know the difference between a successful school of education and a not-so-successful one. That difference really can only be revealed through the collection, analysis, and utilization of outcome data. It is not enough to know that future teachers entering schools of education bring a certain high school class rank, GPA, or SAT/ACT score into the process. Yes, the inputs are important. But far more important is what they do with those tools. And we cannot measure that impact based simply on academic performance leading to the award of a college degree. It requires post-graduation data that can be tracked back to the degree-granting institution.

My full statement, including responses to a number of specific queries from Senator Alexander’s staff can be found here. The initial white paper from the Senate HELP Committee on consumer information (and other topics like accreditation) can be found here.

Fathers and the Learning Process

Eduflack Dadprovement, Parents, technology

Over at Getting Smart, they are running a new Smart Parents series that looks at parent perspectives on many topics exploring the future of education. One of those topics is what relationships help drive the learning process. And this week, dear ol’ Eduflack has a piece that explores how fathers are an important driver in the learning process. For this piece, I put on my Dadprovement hat, reflecting on some of the parenting lessons that have come as a result of my award-winning Dadprovement book.

As I conclude in the piece:

Last year, there was a study in Psychological Science that found that daughters aspire to greater professional goals when they see their fathers doing tasks such as washing the dishes. Consider that for a moment. A young girl has a better chance of become a CEO or governor of even president if she sees her dad at the sink, scrubbing away at the remnants of dinner.

If that’s true, imagine the possibilities for all of those girls (and boys) who see their dads volunteering in school or visiting the classroom, right alongside all of the moms they come to expect. Imagine how much more interesting that science project looks when dad is in the class to help. Or how intriguing the field trip can be with dad leading a group. Or how that device can be transformed from a Netflix machine to a learning device that opens up new worlds and unlimited possibilities.

I hope you’ll give the full piece a read here. And I really hope you give the #SmartParents series a deeper look. It is definitely worth the time, and provides some interesting perspectives on school improvement and technology in learning.

Teaching the U.S. Senate, Ted Kennedy Style

Eduflack Students, teachers, technology

Anyone who knows Eduflack knows that, professionally, I was greatly shaped by my experiences as a U.S. Senate staffer. I was fortunate to work for some tremendous leaders and statesmen, the sort of public officials that we seem to be in short supply of these days. Not only did they teach me about the Senate, legislative procedure, and the appropriations process, but they also taught me about service and priorities and doing what was right (and not necessarily what was easy).

It helps that I am the son of a political scientist, my dad is a presidential historian by trade actually. As a young child, I remember my father being part of the development of the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. Getting to see that library when it opened, I remember writing a very passionate letter to my Senator at the time, Ted Kennedy, telling him how much I enjoyed my time at the JFK Library. And I remember my joy when he wrote back. Not only did I get a lovely typed letter on U.S. Senate letterhead, but It included a handwritten note at the bottom, letting me know he had a son that shared a first name with me. The letter was framed soon after it arrived, and I still have that framed letter with me today.

So it’s clear how my interests in politics and the legislative process were both started and fed over the years. But how do we do the same for other students? Next week, many of our high school students will have the opportunity to vote for the first time. But as recent surveys have show, too many young people don’t see the value in the electoral process and certainly don’t hold any faith in government and the impact it can have on its lives.

Fortunately, there are some that don’t react to such positions with a shrug of the shoulder and a “what are ya gonna do?” response. Next spring, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate will officially open its doors (on March 31, actually). Building on the enormous legacy of Ted Kennedy, the Institute is committed to making the U.S. Senate relevant to learners of all ages, while using technology to better engage incoming generations of voters.

It’ll offer experiences that provide first-hand techniques of being a senator, everything from negotiation to bill drafting to debate to voting. It’ll even offer a tech platform so visitors can simulate being a “senator.”

With 2014 elections looming, and with attention already shifting to 2016 presidential elections, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute is offering a really cool opportunity for educators now. The good folks over at the Institute are offering access to its Senate Immersion Module now, where educators can test the three-hour experience of living the Senate life. They will even get to do it in the Institute’s replica of the U.S. Senate chamber, the cornerstone of the Institute. You can check out the Module here.

Those educators who might have interest in taking the Senate Immersion Module out for a spin or who may want to schedule a field trip can reach out to the Institute at SIMSCHEDULE@EMKINSTITUTE.ORG.

Classroom instruction. Ed tech. Experiential learning. U.S. Senate. Politics. Ted Kennedy. Something new and shiny. And even a chance to drop by the JFK Library after the fact. How can you go wrong?

And if you aren’t able to take advantage of the preview, plan to visit the Institute when it opens. As a huge fan of presidential libraries, as one who played a small part in helping make the Robert C. Byrd Library a reality, and as someone who still cherishes his Ted Kennedy letter, I’ll be there.

 

Some Digital Learning Food for Thought

Eduflack teachers, technology

In discussing the impact of value of digital learning, we often hear naysayers talk about the influx of technology and how it is “robbing” our kids of knowing core foundational elements.  We can’t spell because of spellcheck.  Sentence structure is gone thanks to texting.  You know the drill.

So I was particularly taken this week when my good friend Carol Rasco, the president and CEO of Reading is Fundamental, shared the following words, taken from a principals’ publication in 1815:
“Students today depend on paper too much.  They don’t know how to write on a slate without getting chalk dust all over themselves.  They can’t clean a slate properly.  What will they do when they run out of paper?”
After nearly two centuries, it is nice to know that no matter how things change and how many advances the education field may make, we still share the same frame of fear regarding change and its impact on students and learning.

Testing Problem … or Cheating Problem?

Eduflack accountability, AYP, technology

For the past decade, opponents of the accountability movement had crowed about the problems with testing and establishing student achievement-based metrics to determine the success, or lack there of, of our public schools.

When we learn of testing scandals such as those down in Atlanta, the finger is immediately pointed at the test itself.  Forget those educators who may have organized the erasure parties.  When we learn of cheating scandals such as those in NY, when high-performing students were paid to take the SAT for classmates, we again pointed at the test.  Oh, those poor students who re being overly stressed by being asked to take an SAT or ACT test to get into college.
The anti-testing forces have made their points clear.  Testing is bad.  Cheating proves it (as, it seems, does poor performance).  We can’t use tests to determine the effectiveness of a school, a teacher, or even a student.  We need to view each child holistically.  We need to let our students think and explore and do what they want to do and chase after rainbows and unicorns.
So how, exactly, does the latest from the Chicago Tribune fit into that anti-testing narrative?  For those who have missed it, John Keilman has a great piece on the impact of technology on cheating in the classroom.  
His lead?

Heloise Pechan’s heart rose when she read the essay one of her students, a seemingly uninterested high school sophomore, had turned in for a class assignment on “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The paper was clear, logical and well written — a sign, she thought, that she had gotten through to the boy.

Her elation passed quickly. What came next was suspicion.

Pechan, then substitute teaching at a McHenry County high school, went to Google, typed the paper’s first sentence (“Kind and understanding, strict but fair, Atticus Finch embodies everything that a father should be”) and there it was: The entire essay had been lifted from an online paper mill.

This piece actually provides a thoughtful reflection of the pros and cons of classroom technology, from the cheating that can come of it to the protections and checks it provides to ensure such cheating doesn’t happen.  
But it raises a very interesting question.  Do we have a testing problem, or do we really have a cheating problem?  After all, an essay on “To Kill a Mockingbird” is the perfect holistic evaluation, letting a student explore a topic in the way he or she wants, using critical thinking, reasoning, argument, and all of the other skills the anti-accountability movement has been preaching.  Yet we hear story after story about how paper mills, Wikipedia, and a host of other online sources have corrupted the five-paragraph essay.
At the same time, when we look at those states that have moved to online adaptive technology for their student assessments, we don’t hear a peep about alleged cheating or data fudging.  
Whether we like it or not, educational accountability is not heading for the exit.  Instead of attacking testing, we should be working to ensure that the assessments that are administered are of the highest quality, effectively measure the knowledge and skills of the students, and are used to tailor and improve instruction in the classroom.

PDK, We Have a Problem

Eduflack accountability, Parents, polls, teachers, technology

It is that time of year again, time for the annual PDK/Gallup Poll on America’s thoughts about public education in our great nation.  And once again, the American people have demonstrated a clear schizophrenia when it comes to our classrooms.

When it comes to grading the schools attended by the surveyees’ oldest child, 79 percent of schools received a grade of A or B.  But for our nation as a whole, we only give 17 percent of our schools an A or B.
Seventy one percent of those surveyed have “trust and confidence in the men and women who are teaching children in the public schools,” yet less than one in five believe our schools are above average.  (So we trust the teachers, but don’t have any confidence in the outcomes, I suppose.)
Of those surveyed, 76 percent said we should actively recruit high-achieving students to consider teaching as a profession, but 70 percent of those surveyed said the ability to teach is a natural talent, with just 28 percent believing it can be developed in college.
The full PDK/Gallup survey can be found here, with USA Today’s write-up of the results here.  Among some of the other headscratchers:
* Fewer folks believe school districts have a harder time recruiting good teachers today (52%) than did in 2003 (61%)
* Nearly half of those surveyed (47%) believe unionization hurts the quality of public education, yet 52% side with the unions on collective bargaining issues
* People believe that “principal evaluations” are the most important criteria for determining if a teacher should keep his or her job (with student test scores coming a close second), but there is no explanation whatsoever of what a principal should be evaluating
* 74 percent of those surveyed want increased investment in school technology, but 59 percent oppose using technology to help kids learn at home (while reducing the number of hours needed in high school)
* Despite the emphasis on teacher quality, half of those surveyed would rather hire a less effective teacher than allow students to utilize online learning
Buried deep in the survey (and nowhere to be found in the PDK press release on the report), 74 percent favor public school choice, the highest level in more than two decades, and 70 percent support charter schools, the highest total ever in the PDK survey’s history.  
And the methodology?  Of the more than 1,000 surveyed, 62 percent of those surveyed did not have kids in school, while 29 percent were public school parents.  Sixty seven percent were over the age of 40.  Sixty two percent had a college education.
What do we learn from all of this?  On the whole, it seems folks are pretty happy with their local schools and their local teachers.  But they don’t know why.  They are frustrated with the quality of public education across the nation, but the give President Obama high marks for his education work.  We want technology, but we don’t want kids to use it outside of a 19th century classroom.  We like charters.  And we are basing all of this on a majority of surveyees that aren’t actually customers in this game.
At least one thing can make this local school board chairman feel good this morning.  According to PDK/Gallup, our opinion of school boards seems to be at an all-time low.
  

Thinking Big Ideas

Eduflack accountability, ESEA, Social media, technology
What is the new normal in education?  What was the old normal?  What are the levers for improvement?  What is the role of the knowledge industry in such reforms?  Can we actually ask K-12 to do more with less?

For the past few days, these were the sorts of questions 150 or so of the nation’s leading education consulting groups, foundations, and issue organizations have been contemplating at the Knowledge Alliance’s Big Ideas Retreat 2011.  As one can suspect, particularly in the current policy environment, there were far more questions than answers.  But it was an interesting discussion of the major questions the space is facing nonetheless.

Over at Education Week, Big Ideas participant Sarah Sparks has some of her observations from the retreat.  And over at Twitter, you can check out live tweeting from the past few days, all with the #bigideas11 tag.
Rather than try to summarize the takeaways, Eduflack prefers to offer us some of my favorite ideas or quotes coming from the event’s panelists (a greatest hits list from my live tweeting over at @Eduflack).  They include:
  • How do we harness the power of technology while keeping focus on an equity agenda? (Mass. State Ed Chief Mitch Chester)
  • We are now at a point where we need to think about how we can do school differently.  And the answers come from the classroom. (DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson)
  • DCPS used to “lay down” and let charters “roll right over us.”  DCPS has now woken up (Henderson)
  • Teach for America “needs to have evidence of its efficacy.” (TFA’s Heather Harding)  
  • “Performance has now been defined in our sector.  It’s been defined by how students are doing.” (ED’s Jim Shelton)
  • With Race to the Top, “whether it will be money well spent or now, we will have to wait and see.” (Shelton)
  • We need to bring a scientific discipline to promoting local answers to education challenges. (IES Director John Easton)
  • We have to build a demand for change in education.  Supply isn’t the problem.  (Education Week’s Virginia Edwards)
  • Education research is only as good as how well we get it into the hands of educators to use it. (Edwards)
Despite how some of the comments may read, this was a group that was relatively optimistic about where public education was and could head.  While we tend to focus on the negative, plenty of folks wanted to focus on the positives.  While some may question whether real improvement can happen at scale, most acknowledged that real, lasting improvement was best left to the states and localities.  
There was also a great deal of talk about reinvesting in the notion of public engagement in public education.  How do we better involve parents?  How do we better involve practitioners?  How do we better involve students themselves?  How do we maximize social networking?  How do we change the rhetoric so it is more constructive?
What a refreshing line of thinking …

Unleashing Ed Tech Potential?

Eduflack teachers, technology

It is no secret that Eduflack has been less than impressed with the federal government’s recent commitment (or lack there of) to education technology.  In recent years, federal dollars for ed tech have been a fraction of what they should be or of what other industries experience.  And this year, as part of the budget process, the White House and Congress agreed to put the EETT program out to pasture, killing a terrific program that directed needed dollars to supporting classroom educators on how best to incorporate technology into classroom instruction.

As the feds look to pare back its commitment to ed tech, it should come as no surprise that others are taking a closer look at how to direct more resource and better direct existing resource into the classroom.  Under the guide of determining how we provide a 21st century classroom and learning experience for all 21st century students, we are now seeing states, school districts, non-profits, and the private sector step in to fill a much-needed role.
The latest example of this is the Boston Consulting Group, which today released a new report entitled Unleashing the Potential of Technology in Education.  The report is best consumed in two chunks.  The first is a primer on the “closed loop instructional system,” a model that BCG researchers see as essential to maximizing technology investment in our K-12 education systems.
The second chunk is the always necessary list of recommendations for policymakers.  (And I’ll say it again, if a group issues a report without a specific call to action or clear recommendations, it may as well release a study with nothing more than blank pages.
Unleashing the Potential offers seven recommendations for decisionmakers:
* Embrace a holistic closed-loop strategy to meet clear educational goals
* Enable teachers to use and leverage technology in the classroom
* Create and engaging student experience
* Promote the development of high-quality digital assessments that enable continuous feedback
* Develop a critical mass of research that confirms – or refutes – technology’s benefits
* Enact policies that encourage and facilitate the proliferation of digital learning
* Build an information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure that enables the closed loop
Who can argue with that?  Clear goals.  Teacher empowering and student centric.  Assessments.  Research and evidence.  It sells in districts urban, suburban, and rural.  And it has something for the strongest of reformers and the most loyal of status quoers. 
Best of all, it provides some ideas for the education policy community to chew on, particularly the merits of a closed-loop instructional system.  At a time when dedicated ed tech dollars are being eliminated by the feds, supposedly replaced with ed tech being “embedded” in K-12 in general, such a system can be a win-win.
Yes, it is seriously disappointing to see in print that technology spending in the education space is just one third of what other sectors spend on IT (when you look at it in terms of total percentage of operating costs).  And yes, one realizes we aren’t going to be tripling ed tech spending in the near future.  But it is refreshing to see ed tech talked about in ways other than hardware.  And it is particularly refreshing to see some real potential for how to maximize the intersection of ed tech and human capital in our education system.
(Full disclosure: Eduflack has advised BCG and ed tech groups over the years.)