I saw this on Ian Jukes’ website.  If you haven’t visited it, you are missing a great source of technology information.  You can also subscribe to his blog.

This was written by Karim Kai Ani, founder of Mathalicious, which is rewriting the middle school math curriculum around real-world topics.

By Karim Kai Ani

A recent article in The New York Times explains how after investing $33 million in technology, a school district in Arizona has seen almost no improvement in test scores.   Duh.

It’s no surprise that we as a society have a kind of blind faith that technology is able to solve all of our problems. Yet while the iPad can and should replace textbooks, it can’t replace common sense.

Unfortunately that’s exactly what’s happening in education reform. We’re focused so much on the device that we’re ignoring what’s on it.

Take math. Students dislike it and perform badly in it. Each year they ask, “What does this mean?” and “When will I use this?”

And what’s our answer? A new platform. This is like reading a novel, hating it, and concluding it would be better on the Kindle. Students find the book disengaging and irrelevant, but instead of rewriting it, we simply reformat it.

So what can explain this? I’d argue there are a few factors:

• Evaluating quality content is harder than evaluating quality technology.  Try this. Which is better: Connected Math or Everyday Math? How about: the iPhone/iOS or Android?  We often confuse the platform for the content itself. Houghton Mifflin made news when it announced that it was creating iPad versions of its textbooks, and a host of websites now promise students a “revolutionary” new way to access education.
• The media may herald these as dramatic steps forward, but crtl-v is by definition not innovation. Hormel can design all the cans it wants but it’s still SPAM.  Yet in each of these cases the material “” the content that’s actually being taught “” is exactly the same as its always been. The media may herald these as dramatic steps forward, but crtl-v is by definition not innovation. Hormel can design all the cans it wants but it’s still SPAM.
• Much of the funding for education reform comes from large foundations, many of whom view their role as to push the envelope in public education.  Organizations such as NewSchools Venture Fund and the Gates Foundation tend to support initiatives like alternative teacher preparation programs, technology platforms and charter schools. Because their entrepreneurial emphasis is to reshape the future rather than build upon the present, there’s often an unavoidable disconnect between what teachers want today and what foundations want them to want tomorrow.  Ask a teacher what they’d rather have: a dynamic learning management system that tracks students by individual skill, or an engaging lesson on percents. Then ask what a foundation would rather fund.  (Incidentally, we were recently contacted by a school district which had been awarded a $30,000 grant to buy iPads but had no money leftover for content. It’s not the district’s fault: surely the grant was only for the tablets themselves. But if a funder is going to spend that much money on devices, wouldn’t it make sense to also ensure that the schools can put something good on them? There’s a reason Apple advertises apps: without the App Store the iPad is useless. Just ask HP.)  Just as there’s a disconnect between foundations and teachers, there’s often a disconnect between administrators and teachers as well. Teachers answer to principals who answer to the superintendent who answers to the school board, many of whom have never taught. When they say they want schools to look different, the easiest way to do that is to dress the schools up with projectors, interactive white boards, laptops, tablets, etc. School boards have elections and there’s no easier sound bite than “technology.”

As a country, we seem to care more about style than substance. Want proof? Two words: Jersey Shore .  Perhaps the most important factor, though, is the sixth one: we humans are very good at seeing only what we want to see, finding only what we’re looking for.  You believe the world is flat? You’ll find evidence for that.  You don’t believe in global warming? There’s a scientist somewhere who will back you up.  You think technology will fix education? The high school in my town is failing despite its laptop-for-every-student program, but that’s okay: try the next town over.  I’m sure The New York Times will be happy to reprint the same article next year “¦ and the next “¦ and the next.  Technology is great. I love my iPhone. It can do all sorts of things, but making me a better dancer isn’t one of them. Every day parents ask their kids, “What did you learn today?” It’s never “How did you learn it?” or “On what device did you learn it?” but always, “What?” Yet so long as the answer to that doesn’t change, neither will educational outcomes.

• We need to stop pretending that technology can fix problems that aren’t technological in nature. Kids are bored. They don’t know why they’re learning what they’re learning. The solution isn’t asking the question better. The solution is asking a better question.

The number of violent deaths on school grounds declined to 33 in the 2009-2010 school year, the lowest number on record since the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice began collecting data in 1992.  In the previous school year, there were 38 such deaths.  Thefts and nonfatal violent crimes declined from 1.2 million in 2008 to 828,00 in 2010.  While the data show a consistent decline, there were increases in cyberbullying and suicides among youths ages 5 to 18 outside of school.

Of the 33 violent deaths involving students, staff members, and others on campuses, 25 were homicides, five were suicides, and three involved a law-enforcement officer.

Some have challenged the report as underestimating the extent of violence because the data were collected through surveys and not incident-based reporting.

Taking the challenges into consideration and not downplaying the terrible loss of life, the media exploits school violence to a greater degree than other forms of violence.  We hear far more about school violence than violence in businesses.  Is there more violence in schools than businesses?  I don’t know.  All I know is what I read in the papers.

My friend, Dr. Melinda Strickland, runs the  fantastic Floyd County Education Center, an alternative school in Rome, Georgia.  I am honored that she asked that I write the forward to her new book, More Than A Test Score, published today by Rowman and Littlefield.

No matter what variety of educational program is used to motivate students the bottom line knows the people within the circle of influence are behind every effort the student faces.  Our students are the future leaders, parents, workers and citizens of our society. While tests and accountability are very important; the outcome is far greater than basing achievement on individual performance on tests. Information included in this book, derives from educators who empower students to take ownership in their educational journey by using a variety of strategies and programs to meet the needs of the students.

The strategies target academic, behavioral and social components in education. Each successful program has one common element that rises above anything else and that is the element called empowerment! Building relationships is one of the main keys to success in school and every endeavor faced by the youth of our society. Success stories showed how caring about the individuals has made a difference.

Education needs to refocus on the lives of the students. Accountability is important and testing a crucial part of education; however, it is not the ONLY part that should be measured. True accountability would be to look at the students five years upon completion of their chosen pathway and see where they fit in society. Are they productive members? Are they self-sufficient, reliable, and strong in work ethic?

We need to continue to develop strategies that will empower the students to become adults that are making a difference in society. Listen to what the students are saying. Let each one buy into their trek toward success. Teach them the best way to learn and allow the world of digitalization to be part of the process. Surround yourself with positive people that will support and help develop your dream. Most of all, remember the students have hopes, dreams and ambitions. They need you to help guide them and encourage them to be the best each one can be. Meet them where they are and set high expectations. Believe in the youth and challenge education to be the bright spot in the lives of the learners. Be the adult that each student will say played a significant role in influencing their life. Don’t judge the success of the students, or the teaching, based on test results. These students are our future ““ they are MORE THAN A TEST SCORE!

In a new survey, the annual MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, indicated that the nation’s teachers’ morale is at  its lowest point in more than 20 years.  The report goes on to indicate that the slump in the economy, coupled with the acrimonious discourse over how much weight test results and seniority should be given in determining a teacher’s worth, have conspired to bring morale down.

More than half of teachers expressed at least some reservation about their jobs, their highest level of dissatisfaction since 1989, the survey found. Also, roughly one in three said they were likely to leave the profession in the next five years, citing concerns over job security, as well as the effects of increased class size and deep cuts to services and programs. Just three years ago, the rate was one in four.

About 40 percent of the teachers and parents surveyed said they were pessimistic that levels of student achievement would increase in the coming years, despite the focus on test scores as a primary measure of quality of a teacher’s work.

More than 75 percent of the teachers surveyed said the schools where they teach had undergone budget cuts last year, and about as many of them said the cuts included layoffs “” of teachers and others, like school aides and counselors. Roughly one in three teachers said their schools lost arts, music and foreign language programs. A similar proportion noted that technology and materials used in the schools had not been kept up to date to meet students’ needs.

The survey, in its 28th year, showed similar attitudes among teachers working in poor and stable neighborhoods; in schools serving large numbers of immigrant students who are not proficient in English, as well as native speakers from middle-class backgrounds. The race and ethnicity of the students, and length of a teacher’s experience, had little bearing on the results.

Nonetheless, teachers in urban schools and in schools with a large proportion of minority students tended to be less satisfied about their jobs.

Teachers with high job satisfaction were more likely to feel secure in their jobs, and to have more opportunities for professional development, more time to prepare their lessons and greater parental involvement in their schools, the survey found.

It seems that the attack on education by governors, business people, Arnie Duncan, the Obama Administration, and the George W. Bush Administration has had an impact on education.  I do not think it has the impact that they desired, but it has had an impact. Where will America find the people to replace those who are leaving?  I think that is an answer that we must ask the people who dreamed up high stakes testing, No Child Left Behind, and Race to the Top.

Franklin Schargel

I am indebted to Bonnie Bracy-Sutton and Valerie Strauss from the Washington Post for this material. 

What does Teacher Appreciation Week really mean to those in power?

 The Ironies of Teacher Appreciation Week

By Valerie Strauss

Last Friday, the Friday before the start of Teacher Appreciation Week and two business days before National Teacher Day, D.C. Public Schools officials sent out notices to 333 teachers saying that their jobs had effectively been eliminated. This should be considered better form than last year, when they sent out “excessing” notices on the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week.

But Washington D.C. is hardly the only place that could be cited for violating the spirit of the week so close to it. In state after state, legislatures are considering and passing laws to restrict or end teacher tenure, cut teachers’ collective bargaining rights, unfairly evaluate teachers in part by student standard test scores, and take other actions that teachers consider hostile.

There is too, the warm embrace of school reformers and the Obama administration of Teach for America “” to which teachers take particular offense. TFA recruits newly minted college graduates who are not education majors and gives them five weeks of summer training before placing them in classrooms in high-poverty and rural schools, the very schools you’d think would need the most highly trained teachers.

One of the official events on Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s schedule this week, as he goes around honoring teachers, is to appear at Teach for America’s second annual gala. Of course he did; the Education Department has showered millions of dollars on the organization in the last few years, and last September, Duncan said at an event with Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp and National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel: “I don’t think anyone in the country has done more over the past 15 to 20 years than Wendy Kopp to identify the talents and characteristics that lead to great teaching.”

That was news to many teachers and education researchers in this field.

It would be interesting to see the reaction of education policymakers if they were told that one or more of their children’s teachers had five weeks of training and wasn’t really interested in the teaching profession.

TFA recruits are asked to commit to only two years of teaching, helping to create turnover in schools where teacher instability is most harmful. (TFA itself and its critics cite different numbers when talking about the number of corps members who stay in education beyond a few years.)

This isn’t to say, of course, that some TFA recruits don’t turn out to be wonderful teachers. I know some who have. Still, America is not going to improve its teaching force with an army of itinerant young teachers.

There is a deep irony in the fact that school reformers talk so much about successful education systems in other countries, such as Finland, which have tough standards for entry into the profession, and their strong backing for Teach for America. Something is wrong with this picture.

All of this helps explain why teachers’ job satisfaction has sharply dropped since 2009, and the proportion who are thinking of leaving teaching has gone from 17 percent to 29 percent “” a 70 percent increase in only two years, according to the most recent Metlife Survey of the American Teacher.

There is no question that there is a lot about the teaching profession that can and should be improved. Plenty of teacher training programs are inadequate, and there are teachers in classrooms who shouldn’t be. Most teacher evaluation systems need to be improved, and there is work under way toward that end.

But the unfortunate reality is that a lot of the “reforms” undertaken recently to “fix the profession” won’t work, and are more than likely to drive more teachers out of the profession.

The U.S. Education Department, in what it says is an effort to elevate the teaching profession to help students and teachers alike, released on Monday a 14-page “vision document” for transforming the education profession.

There are some good ideas in the document, but, try as it might, the Education Department can’t get out of its own way. In Section VII, Teacher Evaluation and Development, it includes as one of the teacher evaluation tools “measurements of student growth data.” In Education Department lingo, that means, at least in part, student standardized test scores.

Among the 3.2 million teachers now working in K-12 schools, there are certainly some who are not opposed to using test scores for evaluation. That doesn’t make it a good or fair idea, and it continues to make standardized tests the driving force in public education, a role these exams weren’t designed to have and which many “” and I’d wager most “” teachers think is inappropriate.

One of the comments on the Education Department website announcing the vision document says the following:

“Unless the public is persuaded that teachers are critical for our democratic society, the profession will continue to suffer economically and socially. After basking in the attention from stories of the positive influence they have had on on the lives of individual students during Teacher Appreciation Week, teachers need to integrate one more lesson to their repertoire. How ironic that teachers must teach the significance of teaching.”

And that’s where we stand during Teacher Appreciation Week 2012.

While the nation has been focusing on the student dropout rate (30%) and the teacher dropout rate (46 percent in 5 years), a new study conducted by the RAND Corporation found that of the 519 principals studied, almost 12 percent left in the first year and nearly 11 percent left in the second year. Principals in schools that had met their adequate yearly progress achievement targets in the years prior to their placement were less likely to leave, as were principals placed in start-up schools.  New principals were more likely to leave if test scores dipped in their first year. And when those schools hired a new principal, they usually continued to under-perform in the following year, the report noted.

RAND Education, a unit of the Santa Monica, Calif.-based RAND Corp., gathered its data from four sources: a web-based survey of 65 principals administered in 2008, a set of 20 case studies of schools led by first-year principals; district-level data on principal placements for 519 principals, and student-level achievement test scores. For the purposes of this research, first-year principals included professionals in their first school leadership position, as well as principals who were new to a school but may have been principals elsewhere.

The survey also delved into how leaders allocated their time to see if there was a connection between how much time they spent on certain tasks and student achievement. All the principals said they focused most or all of their time on: promoting data use, observing classrooms, creating a healthy school culture, forming leadership teams, and promoting teacher professional development.

The results also point to a common element among successful principals: high levels of staff cohesion. One way to promote that cohesion is to respect prior practices and culture, the study suggests.

“Rather than changing everything or making independent decisions, principals and teachers reported that principals were more successful in garnering teacher buy-in when they consulted with staff to gain information on perceived strengths and weaknesses at the school. Beyond the initial diagnosis, these principals honored school philosophies by incorporating them into their school-improvement strategies,” it notes.

Susan M. Gates, a co-author and a senior economist for RAND, said that  “The principal can have great ideas, be great at data-driven decision making, great even at instruction,” she said. But helping the staff buy into major changes is a subtle skill, she said. “You have to be able to get people on board with your vision.”

Based on the results of this study, Schools of Education need to restructure the way they prepare new principals.  Is it possible to prepare potential principals with the skills they need to address staff concerns as well as prepare them to deal with the demands being placed on education?