Monday, July 26, 2010

Civil Rights Groups Oppose Obama/Duncan School "Reform" Agenda

Several civil rights groups have banded together to issue their own framework (606K PDF Document) for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Michele McNeil writes in Civil Rights Groups Call for New Federal Education Agenda that the groups have "called on U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today to dismantle core pieces of his education agenda, arguing that his emphases on expanding charter schools, closing low-performing schools, and using competitive rather than formula funding are detrimental to low-income and minority children."

McNeil also posted a response today from the DOE in an update:

We're listening. The administration is dedicated to equity in education and we've been working very closely with the civil rights community to develop the most effective policies to close the achievement gap, turn around low performing schools, and put a good teacher in every classroom. The civil rights community has thoughtfully helped guide our thinking on these critical issues and we need their continued leadership as we move forward to overhaul NCLB.

In Civil rights groups skewer Obama education policy today, Valerie Strauss wrote that the coalition's framework amounts "to a thrashing of President Obama’s education policies and it offers a prescription for how to set things right." She adds, "The Framework for Providing All Students an Opportunity to Learn is a collaboration of these groups: Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Schott Foundation for Public Education, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Coalition for Educating Black Children, National Urban League, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc." The President and Education Secretary are scheduled to speak at the convention of the Urban League this week.

And yes, I did utter a derisive hoot when I read the first words of the DOE response, "We're listening." I wrote in March in They're Not Listening, "'They're not listening.' Or at the very least, 'They're not responding.'" It's a good sign that the administration at least feels the need to respond to the framework from the civil rights organizations. The groups' recommendations mirror much of what Diane Ravitch and others such as the Bolder, Broader Approach to Education have been saying for a long time. Maybe we're beginning to see some progress in turning the administration from a reform agenda that simply won't work.

Odds 'n' Ends

eSchool News Editor Dennis Pierce has an interesting article in Are computers for every student a wise investment? He writes of a study that suggests that "daily technology use in core subject-area classes, frequent technology use in intervention courses, and a low student-to-computer ratio can play a critical role in reducing dropout rates." He also wisely adds that the Project RED study was "sponsored by Intel, Apple, and other companies that stand to profit by a federal investment in computers for every student."

And of course, Michelle Rhee fired a bunch more DC teachers last Friday. Tamar Lewin's School Chief Dismisses 241 Teachers in Washington and Bill Turque's Rhee dismisses 241 D.C. teachers; union vows to contest firings tell the basics, while Valerie Strauss adds some good commentary in The problem with how Rhee fired teachers.

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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

A $35 Tablet Computer?

India announced a $35 touchscreen tablet computer last week that it hopes to bring into production by 2011! The prototype shown off by India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal looks a lot like an iPad and will run the Linux operating system, have a solar power option, and can perform tasks such as word processing, web browsing and video-conferencing.

ZDNet education writer Christopher Dawson commented in a posting last Friday, "There’s actually a fair amount of evidence to suggest that this one will see the light of day, although one has to wonder if $35 is reasonable outside of India where government subsidies could keep costs down. Given rapidly falling equipment costs, though, $35-50 isn’t outlandish, particularly with recent advances from Pixel Qi and potential ODM interest in Taiwan to manufacture these devices at scale."

• ZDNet: India's $35 tablet - vaporware or the real deal? by Christopher Dawson
• ZDNet: How can India build a $35 tablet? More details emerge by Christopher Dawson
• eSchool News: India unveils prototype of $35 tablet computer
• CNET: India's $35 tablet--how low can it go? by Leslie Katz
• AP: India unveils prototype of $35 tablet computer by Erika Kinetz

We may never see the $35 tablet device, but even at a slightly higher price, such a product could be a boon for cash strapped schools looking to increase their use of technology.

Race to the Top Round 2 Finalists Announced

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced today that 18 states and the District of Columbia have been selected as finalists in the federal Race to the Top competition. Michele McNeil writes in 18 States & D.C. Named Race to Top Round 2 Finalists that "each state will assemble a group of five people to come to Washington the week of August 9 to make their final, last-ditch pitches for a portion of the $3.4 billion in federal money still left in the pot." The finalists are Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. Seventeen other states that had applied did not make the cut.

I was pleased to be reminded by the announcement that Indiana's teachers' unions had held firm in not endorsing another try at Race to the Top funding. (Our Superintendent of Public Instruction and Governor wanted them to sign on without ever having seen the final proposal to be submitted. In the end, Indiana sat out this round.) While there is lots wrong with Race to the Top and the Obama Adminstration's Blueprint for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the first comment under McNeil's article may sum up the best of people's objections to Secretary Duncan's string of contests for funding:

As a payer of Federal taxes the idea only some states receive money collected from ALL states is an absolute travesty. Silly me, it isn't about education, it is about elections.

Obviously, federal tax money is often returned to the states unproportionally to what the states have paid in. But making essential funding a contest with winners and losers is immoral. Folks need to remember that this funding goes to provide free, appropriate, public education to our children.

Duncan to Hold Radio Town Hall Meeting with Teachers

A brief posting on Education Week, Sec. Duncan Seeks Teachers' Questions, Comments, led me to the DOE page for the meeting, Secretary Arne Duncan to Participate in Radio Town Hall Meeting with Nation’s Teachers. The page carries the following invitation:

Looking forward to Thursday’s event, we invite teachers to consider some of the questions that the Secretary and the studio audience and listeners will discuss — questions such as…

• What can we do to enhance the teaching profession?
• How can we do a better job of encouraging and rewarding excellent teaching?
• How can we do a better job of measuring success?

Post your comments here. We will highlight a sample of your responses during the live radio program.

My take on this town hall meeting is that it is much like Duncan's Listening and Learning Tour. Any learning going on will be on the part of the teachers participating, as Duncan and the Obama Administration have demonstrated through their programs and plans for education "reform" that they're clearly not listening or learning from teachers. I've repeatedly tried to share my views with them without response. Folks like Diane Ravitch who can get an audience with DOE officials find them unwilling to accept even the idea that their plan might be flawed. I've never seen educators so demoralized by the constant negative rhetoric about teachers coming from the leaders many of us worked to help elect, even through the dark Bush years.

The bright spot in all of this is the questions and comments already posted on the page. Teachers, and you can clearly tell the posts of teachers from the non-teachers postings, are giving Duncan an earfull. While Duncan might actually read the comments, he won't be swayed from his current plans. There's been enough outcry from respected educators across the nation that has had no effect to see that more of the same won't change things. But the folks who are posting can write their representatives in Congress, people whose offices do listen and respond to their constituents, unlike our Secretary of Education and President. So while the town hall meeting is probably just an event so Duncan can say he listened, their is some hope of restoring some sanity to the national discussion on education reform.

Reader Comment

Jim Crittenden, a teacher at Kayenta Middle School, shared a comment about my posting about civil rights groups opposing the Obama/Duncan education reform plans.

I, too, had to groan at the DOE response to the civil rights groups, especially their mention of putting "good" teachers into classrooms. For every good teacher enabled by NCLB in Native Arizona, I have seen a dozen who have been blocked from being in classrooms. This is not what I would call a successful record, but instead a huge failure in terms of offering better schools here. A lot of the blame rightfully goes to wingnut AZ policies, but it is precisely those policies that are being delegated, and consequently enabled, by a federal law more intent upon coercing competent and dedicated local leaders (for what?) than improving civil rights.

Amen, Jim.

Odds 'n' Ends

I ran display ads yesterday for two affiliate advertisers new to Educators' News. [Now edited out.] The PartStore looked to me to be a good place to find replacement remotes and such, and had the advantage of even carrying parts for chainsaws and sweepers. My 16 year-old chainsaw died last week, but it was so worn out that I just bought a new one. And it seems our vacuum cleaners always need a new belt or beater bar.

The other new advertiser, Geeks.com, is a place where I purchased some hard to find parts when I was rebuilding computers for my special ed students. I got a lot of stuff from Computer Geeks, but the best buy I found there was a really off-the-wall item. I was spending lots of hours formatting and ghosting individual hard drives for the kids' computers and found a 14 bay SCSI tower on Computer Geeks that would allow me to automate and expedite the process. The thing was a monster, looking much like a tall server. I never filled it completely, but often would have four to six drives in it that I would erase, format, and transfer the hard drive ghost of the operating system and applications I wanted on the students' computers. It saved a lot of time.

After I retired, I sold the tower on eBay for about half of what I had in it. By now, the thing is an antique or more likely, in someone's attic or a landfill, but it sure fit the bill for me.

You've got to appreciate an outlet that retains a sense of whimsy in their advertising. At least, I do. So when I saw they'd joined the Commission Junction advertising consortium, I quickly added them to our affiliated advertisers here on Educators' News and Senior Gardening.

And on a personal note, while I thought I wasn't going to be posting anything to Educators' News this week, it turns out that sitting at the computer is one thing I can do while healing from surgery last Friday!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

ASL from Space

Astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson sent a six-minute video last Friday for deaf children from the International Space Station to give them a glimpse of what life as an astronaut is like. Zoe Macintosh tells about the American Sign Language transmission embedded at right in Astronaut Makes 1st Sign Language Address from Space Station. Macintosh writes that Caldwell-Dyson, with her ponytail bouncing gently above her head as she signed into the camera, "was inspired to film the video to encourage deaf students to pursue science – and possibility even aim to be a part of NASA." Caldwell-Dyson will be making the first spacewalk of her career on August 5 when she and fellow Flight Engineers Doug Wheelock install a power cable to the Unity module in preparation for the installation of the Permanent Multipurpose Module during the STS-133 mission in November.

House Passes $59 Billion War Funding Bill - Squat for Teachers

CNN reported last night in House passes war funding bill that the "House of Representatives on Tuesday gave final approval to a nearly $59 billion emergency spending bill" after the Senate had stripped out "more than $20 billion for domestic priorities." Many Democrats opposed the bill. Wisconsin's David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, "slammed the Senate for stripping domestic funding from the bill, including funding for teachers and other forms of education funding."

Tough Week for Arne

It's been a tough week for Arne Duncan already. On Monday, a consortium of civil rights groups blasted his Race to the Top and ESEA reauthorization plans. A Nick Anderson article today on the Washington Post carries the headline, States setting pace on school change; Obama agenda stalled in Congress. And Valerie Strauss reports this morning in New analysis blasts Obama’s school turnaround policy -- and tells how to fix it that a new national coalition of 24 community-based groups, Communities for Excellent Public Schools, will issue a report today that "criticizes the administration for taking 'top-down school improvement efforts' that are part of No Child Left Behind and thinking that they will somehow be successful by 'adding teeth.' It says that they ignore a growing body of research about what does work." According to Strauss, the group's report "includes a proposal for a new approach to school intervention called 'Sustainable School Transformation,'" which focuses on "school culture, curriculum and staffing" and "wrap-around supports for students."

Odds 'n' Ends

Keep an eye on that DOE page of questions for Arne Duncan's town hall meeting with teachers. It's really interesting.

Walt Gardner's Who's a Good Teacher is a good read on his Reality Check blog. One of the comments below his posting has a link to another good column on the subject, The paradox of teacher quality.

On the home front, despite being on limited duty, I picked a whole bunch of tasty melons yesterday. Besides growing some of our perennial favorites, I'm testing some new varieties this year and finding them to be quite good. You can follow my garden adventures (and misadventures) on Senior Gardening.

Along the same line, we added another new affiliated advertiser to the site today, Safer^® Brand. They're the folks famous for Safer's^® organic Insect Killing Soap. While we're not totally organic in our gardening methods, we do employ insecticidal soaps and many other organic approaches to our gardening. The melons above were grown without the use of any pesticides!

And for those of us getting a bit long in the tooth, there's now research backing up one of our vices. ScienceDaily carries a report today, Alcohol Reduces the Severity of Rheumatoid Arthritis, Study Finds, that says "Drinking alcohol may reduce the severity of rheumatoid arthritis." Now I have some scientific justification for my affinity for Long Island iced tea.

Friday, July 30, 2010

A Strange Week

Valerie Strauss attempts to "make sense of what happened this week in the world of education" in her Obama, education, Snooki, civil rights and Bryan Bass posting today. This one is a good read, as Valerie shares a bit of the behind the scenes action going on in a week that saw two organizations strongly rebuke the President and his Secretary of Education over their education "reform" plans, the Secretary say "We're listening," and then both the President and Secretary strongly push their existing, flawed plans once again.

Others carrying the play by play were:

• Obama defends education policies in speech to National Urban League by Nick Anderson
• Obama Trumpets Value of Race to the Top by Alyson Klein
• Duncan Deflects Civil Rights Groups' Criticism: You're 'Wrong' by Michele McNeil

Edward Moscovitch shares some views on the subject of school reform in the summer issue of Commonwealth in Teachers are not to blame. His intro to an article filled with graphs and statistics has some real gems:

In the past few months, President Obama, Gov. Deval Patrick, and the press have practically made “education reform” synonymous with “firing teachers.”

What all these so-called reform initiatives have in common is the assumption that teachers in low-performing schools have the tools they need to turn their schools around but, for some reason, are refusing to use them.

The implications of this finding are enormous: It suggests that the policies we are pursuing are un­likely to make much of a difference, because they don’t address the real problem.

What’s the point of getting rid of half the teachers at an inner-city school if the ones who replace them also lack the necessary tools? Similarly, replacing a public school with a charter school won’t by itself make any difference; either way, teachers need help, not blame.

They need help not because they do a poor job of teaching, but because they work with very needy children.

Have a great weekend!

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