Paper and Ink, Brick and Mortar - Make way for digital delivery

Last week CEOs from technology companies and text book publishers met with senior officials from the DOEd and FCC to talk about the digital revolution in education.  Also present at the table was the LEAD (Leading Education by Advancing Digital) commission, whose goal is to harness technology as a catalyst to education reform.  The four members of LEAD are:

• Columbia University President Lee Bollinger- A liberal bastion in higher education

• Co-Founder of TPG Capital James Coulter- Private equity funds management company because, as Tim McGraw head of McGraw-Hill Financial stated recently, "The growth outlook is really quite healthy for the education business and we expect that to continue." 

• Former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings-  Her consulting company leverages the many public private partnerships she has forged along with the insider experience of the many former capitol hill experts she employs to drive public policy nationwide. Seeing as how, as Secretary of Ed under George Bush, she was a leading proponent of No Child Left Behind, we must question whether her ability to affect national policy is really all that desirable.

• Common Sense Media Founder and CEO Jim Steyer- perhaps a reasonable member, but he may have drunk the kool aid too."The great news is that technology provides us with an opportunity to leapfrog decades of simply maintaining the status quo and to truly revolutionize education in this country quickly, which is exactly what’s needed to remain economically competitive in today’s global economy."

Key quotes from this meeting:

Duncan said "We need your expertise, your leadership, to figure out how every single child has access to content 24/7. I see amazing pockets, islands of success, but it's on the margins. The question is, can we get to scale as a country?" IMPLEMENTATION ON A MASSIVE SCALE THROUGH GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION

James Coulter, "Our goal with this commission is to help policy makers to more swiftly and effectively integrate digital learning into our national curriculum.”  SPEED WITHOUT CONSIDERATION

FCC Chairman Genachowski said, "I’m confident the LEAD Commission’s blueprint will chart a course to ensure that education technology will help prepare students to compete in the 21st century global economy.” GLOBAL FOCUS, SCHOOL TO WORK PROGRAMMING

One of the digital companies represented at the meeting was McGraw-Hill who plans to push for learning programs related to vocational training online and is working on making more learning material and textbooks available across various digital platforms. The company is looking to strike joint ventures with companies to impart skills learning in India and skills training in China. Having perfected such programs in these massive markets, it will be very easy to bring such digital training to America.  And with government's focus on providing 21st century global workers, and businesses like Margaret Spelling's working to push such policies nationally, McGraw-Hill will have a ready made entree to the American market.

That's what all of this is about.  The government helping private business create new markets by making their products mandatory.

LEAD's goal is to produce a blueprint by the end of the year, based on input from teachers, parents, local government and school officials, students, and ed-tech industry leaders, which will include:

• a fact base of current efforts, trends, cost implications, and other obstacles regarding technology adoption in schools; Note they are not evaluating its effectiveness or desirability
• an examination of how tech-driven transformation in other sectors could be carried over to education;  Education is not a business model and applications in other sectors do not necessarily translate to correct application to education.
• the types of policies and funding vehicles that may be needed to ensure that school systems can successfully incorporate technology. It is unclear who is funding the LEAD report or what deals have already been struck to ensure compliance with the policy and funding recommendations developed in the report.

If these people have their way, what will the future classroom look like? It may be much smaller as many students may choose to stay home and work on-line on their own. It will be staffed by less experienced teachers because the software will adapt and challenge each individual student in a way that a teacher never could. The interim, and most immediate step, will be what techsperts are calling "blended learning" where children spend part of their classroom time on computers doing endless worksheets.

From Schools Matter blog

Now Vander Ark is leveraging his connections from 7 years as check delivery boy for the Gates Foundation to shape the education agenda in ways that will pay a handsome return on Bill and Melinda's beneficence over the years.  It's called blended learning, and it represents a poisonous mixture of bad pedagogy and big business; it is gaining footholds in the poorest schools (or in KIPP schools that pretend to be poor) where resistance is the weakest and resources are in shortest supply.  And yes, it does involve computers and computer software and computerized assessments, with the added value of cutting the teaching staff by as much as half while potentially doubling class size.  More tech aides and fewer teachers.


The way it works is to have children taught in shifts, and while one shift has the attention of a flesh and blood teacher, the other shift of children is de-minded by an endless stream of digital worksheets handed out by an indefatigable bank of endlessly-cheerful computers.  In the example of the KIPP kindergarten (a scary prospect, indeed), children are plugged in for half their time in school.  Note, too, that the KIPP "school leader" claims a lack of funds as his rationale, even though KIPP, Inc. has a stash of corporate cash in the hundreds of millions an unlimited stream just for the asking.  The fact is that these most vulnerable children are guinea pigs in an unproven experiment intended to benefit corporate bottom lines, not children.  Note, too, that these children are particularly sensitive to the learned helplessness treatments that are applied during Kipp-notizing summer sessions to maintain total compliance, with or without supervision.

 Like so many things coming out of Washington these days, this seems to be rushing something through that sounds good, but has great potential for unintended consequences.  It attempts to push a business sector that should be able to market itself quite effectively without DC mandates. It shows the trap laid by establishing power bases (like DOEd) in Washington. They cannot resist the temptation to use their power and "make a difference."

What Does Quality Education Look Like?

We've all read about “investing in education” and using technology to “transform education,” and you must conceded there is some value in both of these concepts. Those districts that are struggling to show improved student performance, need to invest in finding ways to reform their spending so they get more bang for their buck. Technology can certainly play a role in transforming education by allowing advanced students to reach their fullest potential or by providing access to high quality teachers in inaccessible locations. But often, the solutions that are needed require on the spot innovation and systemic flexibility, not hard wiring or advanced technology. So what does true education reform look like? What does “tailoring educational settings to individual students’ needs to maximize student outcomes” really look like?

Today I offer a real life example from a teacher in my local school district. The names have been changed, but not the situation or actions. Carol works with educationally “challenged” students. One such student was little Arthur who is in kindergarten, struggles with social interactions and has all ready been deemed behind his peers. Arthur needed to improve his reading skills but actively refused help from the special education teachers. He would scream, throw papers on the floor and generally work against anyone trying to help him.

Some models for education reform would simply apply more money and technology to Arthur’s problem. Perhaps he would be given a special computer and software that would provide a number of increasingly difficult sentences to read and would challenge him with an ever expanding assortment of new vocabulary. Experts would claim that a child who has difficulty with interpersonal communication is far more likely to respond to the non-personal approach of a computer. It is possible that this approach would work and, over time, Arthur’s reading skills would improve. But would Arthur’s educational situation in general be improved? Perhaps not.

Enter Carol, who has the wonderful ability to look at a situation from a totally new perspective. After experiencing Arthur’s outbursts first hand and having her hand aggressively pushed away when she tried to point to a word he had read wrong, Carol decided they needed to work on Arthur’s attitude towards learning before they could make any progress on his actual learning. She told him they were going to play the “What’s my job?” game. In this game, made up on the spot, they would make a list of everybody’s (in this case hers and his) jobs. (Please note -no actual technology was used during this exercise.) On a piece of paper she wrote her name in one column and his in another. Prompting for his suggestions they came up with detailed lists of what each of them was supposed to do in their jobs at school. I’m simplifying here for brevity, but basically her job was to teach and respect him. His job was to give his best effort at understanding and to respect her.

Days two and three with Arthur were spent replaying the “What’s My Job?” game; the first day at Carol’s request and the second day at Arthur’s (he loved the game). On day four, they no longer played the game. Arthur now had a much better grasp of why he was there and what others were expecting of him. He also understood that what the teachers were doing was their job and he appreciated why they were doing it. Arthur sat and concentrated on his reading. He did not scream in the resource office. In fact, the other teachers who were used to his outbursts, first thought that he was not in school. The learning that took place was about the roles of students and teachers and why everyone was there in the school building each day. That opened a door to learning that Arthur had shut.

This is what quality, personalized education looks like. The average student probably does not need as much personalization, but an ideal system would allow for this flexibility. No computer program could have taught Arthur the lesson he learned from Carol, nor would it have been able to veer off topic to address his barrier to learning. Even self learning (??) software does not have that level of flexibility. Learning would have remained a painful process for both student and teacher.

I should also mention that Carol just recently got her teaching degree. Arthur had already spent 6 months with the veteran teachers at school who had not moved him any further down the field. This is more anecdotal evidence that long tenured teachers do not necessarily provide the best education. Sometimes they become stuck in a rut and sometimes they are too burnt out to bother finding new solutions. I will also add that the veteran teachers were very grateful for Carol’s efforts. She not only allowed them to show Arthur’s parents some progress, but she also gave them back some peace in their world.