More DeVosian Democrats

You may not have heard of the Progressive Policy Institute lately, but they'll be coming up more often as their Education Honcho releases his new book. PPI is worth paying attention to, if for no other reason than the organization provides Exhibit #1,635 of Why Teachers Can't Trust Alleged Democrats.

What is PPI? From their own website:

The Progressive Policy Institute is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock.
 
Founded in 1989, PPI started as the intellectual home of the New Democrats and earned a reputation as President Bill Clinton’s “idea mill.” Many of its mold-breaking ideas have been translated into public policy and law and have influenced international efforts to modernize progressive politics.

Today, PPI is developing fresh proposals for stimulating U.S. economic innovation and growth; equipping all Americans with the skills and assets that social mobility in the knowledge economy requires; modernizing an overly bureaucratic and centralized public sector; and, defending liberal democracy in a dangerous world.

In short, a neo-liberal Thinky Tank and advocacy group, masquerading as a bunch of progressives. They claim close ties to the New Democrats in Congress, as well as an assortment of governors and mayors. They like to call themselves centrists. They have staked out positions on a variety of issues, including education.

You can get a sense of where they stand from one of their most recent pieces, an attempted rebuttal of the NEA statement on charter schools. They lead with plenty of inflammatory language-- NEA's research is "shoddy," the "retrograde" report is "fear mongering worthy of a prize." They also repeat time-worn charteristas talking points-- charter schools are really public schools, no students are ever counseled out (which is true-- many are just pushed out), and nobody can prove that charters are adding to segregation. And they make a point by point rebuttal.

1) NEA says only elected school boards should authorize charters. PPI says that elected school boards are "problematic" because they are "captive" to their employees. In other words, the teachers union controls school board elections and the elected board members are just teacher shills. Also, charters are separate but unequal because charters are better.

2) NEA says charters should operate under same labor laws. PPI says that the ability to do whatever the hell you want with staffing-- hire, fire, pay levels all at the will of the operator-- is critical for charters.

3) NEA says that charters on average do no better than public schools. PPI holds its breath and declares that this is just not true, which I suppose is how we argue these things in Trump's America.

4) NEA says competition does not improve public schools. PPI says that the monopolies of public education is bad and competition will make everything great, just you wait and see.

5) NEA says charters are not held accountable  like public schools are. PPI says tat charters are held accountable for their performance, though they don't actually say by whom.Maybe authorizers, whose agenda is straightforward-- if the charter stays open they get a cut if students aren't learning the charter closes.

I'll remind you that all of this is coming from nominal Democrats. Even the Faux Democratic group DFER has tried to distance itself from the DeVos/Trump administration, but there isn't a thing here that Betsy DeVos wouldn't heartily agree with. And you can find PPI hanging out with the Fordham Institue, the National Alliance for Public [sic] Charter Schools, Bellwether Education Partners, and Friends of Choice in Urban Schools. The list of PPI fellows includes familiar names from many of these groups.

Can't lie-- that is a snappy hat

The voice of PPI on education is David Osborne. Osborne ran the "reinventing government task force" for VP Al Gore back in 1993, then spent a decade at the Public Strategies Group, "a consulting firm that helped public organizations improve their performance." He pops up in newspaper op-ed pages to tout the wonders of charter conversion. Here he is in the Philadelphia Inquirer explaining that Philly ought to imitate New Orleans or DC. Or in the Boston Globe (Massachusetts is his home base) touting a "new paradigm" for public schools which is, essentially, to replace public schools with charter schools.

And he has a new book out this week-- Reinventing Education-- that looks like it's going to be well-promoted.

In this book, Osborne uses compelling stories from cities like New Orleans and lays out the history and possible future of public education. Ultimately, he uses his extensive research to argue that in today's world, we should treat every public school like a charter school and grant them autonomy, accountability, diversity of school designs, and parental choice.

 I have not read the book (and it's not high on my list), but I am curious where he stands on the charter characteristics of non-transparency, non-accountability, and generating profits for private corporations and individuals. Nor do I see any signs of Osborne grappling of what happens to "undesireable" students in a charter world in which no charter has to take a student they don't want (a serious issue in New Orleans).

There's a whole world of charter mis-information here, coupled with the tone of someone who has no interest in a serious conversation about any of the issues that charters raise. That's all just another day at the education debates.

No, what I want you to notice, and remember as this group pops up, is that these are self-labeled progressives, folks with long and strong Democratic ties. The GOP is no friend of public education, but at least they never pretend otherwise. But here's evidence once again that when it comes to education, some Democrats are completely indistinguishable from the GOP.

New Cyber-Incident Map

Doug Levin at EdTech Strategies has compiled an interesting/alarming new resource. It's a map of school-related cyber incidents.

Levin notes that between " January 1, 2016 to August 31, 2017, U.S. K-12 public schools and districts were reported to have experienced at least 202 separate cyber security-related incidents resulting in the disclosure of personal information, the loss of taxpayer dollars, and the loss of instructional time." Plus some involved identity theft and criminal charges. This screenshot gives you an idea-- for the fully interactive map, follow the link.

Way to go, North and South Dakota

While many of us are worried about corporate players with their own nefarious purposes (just what DOES Google intend to do with the giant ocean of data they harvest via their many school-related apps), schools are vulnerable to the same issues as every other wired-up, plugged-in organization-- hackers, cyber-attacks, and sloppy maintenance of security. Since school districts are often in no position to win biding wars for top IT talent, one can argue that educational networks are often staffed by folks who are not necessarily the top talent in the field.

But schools remain a treasure trove of identity information about children, who are excellent targets for identity theft (your eight year old probably won't notice a bunch of faux consumer activity being perpetrated in her name). On top of that, we have the expected level of prankery (one school system's network was hacked in order to make everyone look at a "nude image") and stuff I wouldn't have expected-- I would not have thought anyone would care to launch a denial of service attack against a school, but imagine the consequences if one were launched during on-line testing time.

The map is a quick, handy guide to what's happening out there, and Levin provides links for those who want to contribute to the database. It's one more useful resource for getting a clearer picture of what's happening.

Money and Control

Even as I was imagining a future in which classrooms are a mass of sponsored product placement, folks were pointing out that such brand-building bribery would be illegal in many states where it is against the law for a teacher to get any money from anywhere.

Consider this recent story from Washington state, where the Evergreen School District has put its foot down and stomped heavily on the neck of crowd-funding contributions to classrooms. Amy Johnson, a third-grade teacher at Evergreen School District's Riverview Elementary School has used Donors Choose, a crowdfunding site, since 2010. 2,000 books. Math manipulatives for everybody. Those are just some of the benefits to Johnson's students. But the district says the state says that teachers must knock it off.

I've read accounts of this sort of ban popping up here and there, and one popular theory about why is the notion that districts and/or states are ashamed that outsiders have to make up for the lousy job they do of financing their schools. But the Evergreen article offers a more practical explanation:

The Washington State Auditor’s Office advised the district that a policy needs to be put in place to ensure that the money is properly handled, and that the items are designated as district property and put in the district inventory.

Money is control, and what school districts don't pay for, school districts can't control. Money that doesn't pass through the district's financial office is suspect, and objects that exist within the four walls of a district school-- well, all those objects must clearly belong to the school district.

On the one hand, I sort of understand this. Sort of. The public school district acts on behalf of taxpayers and the taxpayers are entitled to know how money is spent within the district. And what you don't pay for, you don't have say over. This is why I'm alarmed rather than heartened that some members of the Trump administration without being paid; to me, that's just a way for them to tell the US taxpayers, "We do not work for you."

But because money is power, these money issues often become the proxies for power issues. The school, for example, where the principal tries to control staff activity by keeping just one copy machine where they can't get to it, so the parents collect money and donate a copy machine which the principal then turns down. This happens for no reason other than "nobody is going to tell me how to run my building."

And Evergreen has also tried to shut down teachers personal out-of-pocket spending, offering a kind of sulky petulant explanation:

“We do stock a classroom to the point where teachers can conduct classes and kids have supplies,” [District spokesperson] Spolar said.

So, you know-- what more do you want?

The two versions of a classroom-- the branded sponsorship and the only-what-the-district-gives-you-- represent two sides of the same issue. School districts and states don't want to spend enough money on schools, but they also don't want the kind of power sharing that comes with pursuing other sources of revenue. Little sell-outs come with boundaries that make them acceptable (all Pepsi wants in return for this contribution is a big sign on your scoreboard) or justifiable to most folks (all the army wants in return for their check is a chance to make a pitch at a football game, but hey-- it's the US Army).

There haven't been big fights about teacher contributions because although the vast majority of teachers (I'm betting-- I have no data on this) buy supplies for their own classroom, it rarely occurs to them to act as if they own those supplies).

And sometimes this sort of thing is kept kind of quiet. For instance, a school that has an athletic trainer on staff-- whose salary is paid by a private individual.

But the bottom line is simple. Most schools need more money, and most state legislatures aren't going to give it to them. In fact, through charters and vouchers and various other reformy programs, many legislatures are busy making sure that public schools have less money and fewer resources. (Not important, they say, even as the rich and powerful make sure to send their own children to schools with massive funding and tiny class sizes.) So where will additional funds come from? From staff? From crowd-sourcing? From contributors? All are possible, and yet all require school district administrations to give up complete control of their own operations.

A money gap is a power gap, an invitation for someone to step in and trade one for the other, and districts can be managed by people whose desire to hold onto power is huge (and yes-- I am completely aware that this is exactly the sort of bullshit that makes people more interested in charter/voucher/choice systems).

Solutions? Well, one is for teachers to go tell their administration to get stuffed and keep using whatever resources they can come up with. Or administrations could just treat teachers as if they were fully-grown-up professionals who can be allowed to pursue whatever avenues they can come up with that don't compromise the integrity of the school. Another is for administrations to find ways to incorporate contributions rather than barring the door and grabbing tightly to the reins. The best solution would be for legislatures to fully and adequately fund the schools in their state, even and especially the underfunded schools where Those People's Children attend. We'll see which solution is most likely to occur. In the meantime, Amy Johnson had to take her Donors Choose page down. Her students will have fewer resources this year, but at least Johnson will remember who's boss of her.

ICYMI: Septermber Kick-Off Edition (9/3)

Here's some reading for your long weekend. Remember to promote and share the voices that you think are important.

The Socio-Economic Divide on College Campuses Is Getting Wider-- Fast

One more trend that underlines growing inequity in the US.

Costs, Performance Fuel Charter Criticism

Turns out that cyber charters don't do a good job or save money.

The Magic School Bus in an Actual Public School

This is humor, and kind of fun, and kind of sad. Poor Ms Frizzle

San Diego Editor Continues Spurious Attacks

Thomas Ultican is tireless when it comes to continuing pushback against San Diego newspaper attacks on public ed.

What Really Makes No Excuses Charters

Another data-packed, amateur-comprehensible look at charters and the stories they tell, from Jersey Jazzman

The Troubling Trend To Collect Behavioral Data on All Children

Nancy bailey looks at more programs designed to track student behavioral data.

Education Can't Fix Poverty

Have You Heard podcast interview with historian Harvey Kantor about why we think schools can fix economic woes/

Voucher Champs Take Note

Mercedes Schneider takes a closer look at the Illinois voucher deal and points out that nobody yet knows how the bill will be paid

Educolor Collective Calls Educators To Confront White Supremacy

Including in their own schools and classrooms-- an important call to action for the beginning of the school year.

DeVos Education Roundtable

Betsy DeVos had an education round table. Guess who was-- and was not-- invited.

A Black Face in a White Space

A graduate talks about his four years as a black student at University of Pennsylvania. Plenty to think about here. 

A Classroom of Tomorrow

Good morning,children, and welcome to today's classes in the Mr. Edbrand Fifth Grade Room, brought to you by Exxon here at Apple Elementary School. I'll remind you that all Samsung devices and Microsoft Surface tablets must be placed in the big box just outside the door. As usual we'll be recording and webcasting today, and only properly sponsored materials can be shown on camera.

Oh, Chris-- you brought in your signed clearances from home? Excellent-- you can finally move your desk out of the cupboard and join your classmates on camera.

Today we're going to continue working on this week's essay, "Why Pepsi Is the Most Refreshing Drink." Remember, we're going to be writing them with the new Edutech Markotron 5000s that came in yesterday. No, Ronny-- you're trying to hold your Markotron like a pen or pencil-- just flip your wrist so your hand is upside down and backwards-- the Markotrons work fine if you just change the way you write. At recess we'll be trying out the new game from EduGo-- did everyone sign their decline-of-liability forms? And while at your work stations, remember not to slouch so that the new DataGrabber Mining Module can track every part of your facial expressions.

I'll also remind you that part of your class requirement is to post a picture from class on Instagram or Twitter; remember, you only get credit if you use the hashtag #MrEdbrandTeaches, because every day what...? That's right-- "Every day I'm increasing my digital footprint."

After lunch we'll be filming the spots for the demo of EduGadget's Gramminator-- the ones we rehearsed for the last few days-- so make sure you get your face and hair all straightened out before then. Remember-- we're doing two versions, one with all the white kids in the front and another with all the white kids in the back. It's so EduGadget can use them in different markets, dear. We'll do that right after the Faberware Super Writing Center.

Yes, it's true that Miss McSpine has left the school. After that unfortunate incident with her ex-fiance, she lost most of her sponsorship deals, and the school had to let her go.

Which reminds me-- I'm very cross about yesterdays video footage, We had to scrub several spots because somebody decided it would be funny to hold up a Microsoft logo in the background. Look-- someday when you're a grown-up professional, you can develop your own personal brand, but right now, the only personal brand in this room is mine, and we are not a Microsoft classroom. Look at my teaching suit-- do you see Microsoft on here anywhere? No-- Google on the left sleeve, Apple on the right, and these other spots for our friends at McGraw Hill. Turn around? Stop giggling-- you know very well that Pearson is on my butt. Yes, I think it's funny, too. Yes, Leah, I do look like a NASCAR driver.

Oh, before we do the Pledge To Apple, I need to tell you that I drove to school today in a Lexus XLR, the preferred car of top fifth grade teachers across the valley.

No, Chris, I never imagined it would be like this for me as a teacher. The New York Times (that was a newspaper-- ask your parents) wrote about teacher branding and selling out to companies years ago, but nobody knew how big it would get.

Now let's get to work. We have lots to do-- I'll be on hiatus next week for my product introduction tour in Hawaii, thanks to my friends at MegaEduTechCorp. Yes, I will miss all six of you, but I'll see you soon. And when I come back, I'll have lots of new products for us to try, some new curriculum units to unpack and deliver, and maybe a new car, too.

What, Pat? No, I told you. We'll start studying history when and if we find a sponsor.

Boy, when people back in the day said that education would be transformed by the free market, they had no idea.

Do Not Make Lessons Relevant

This article is actually from 2014, but it touched a nerve that has been raw since I was a student in the 1970s. The author is talking about the issue of students asking "Why do we need to learn this anyway" and after setting up the problem, he drops this:

The best solution to this problem is to make every lesson relevant to each student. However, given the impossibility of achieving that goal, I offer a few teaching tips that can mostly make that dreaded question about relevance a thing of the past. 

And to make matters worse, the link to this article called it "Three Ways To Make Your Lessons Relevant."

No. No no no no no, and also, no.

The instant you decide you want to "make" your lesson relevant, you've lost, because you have admitted that the lesson is not actually relevant. After all, you don't look at the ocean and say, "We'll have to find a way to make that wet." If your spousal unit says, "I'm looking for ways to make myself like you," that is not a good sign.

Yeah, that's wet.

Your lesson should BE relevant, and you should know why it is relevant. And if your students ask why it's worth their time, you should be able to answer that question.

Put another way-- if you don't have a good reason for teaching the lesson, then why are you teaching the lesson? Note: "Because we always have" and "Because that's just one of those things teachers do" are not good answers. "Because I've been told I have to," is not much better, but in the current day and age, it is sometimes the honest answer.

So any time you find yourself trying to think of a way to make a lesson relevant, take a step back and instead ask yourself why you are teaching that lesson at all. As teachers, we have been given stewardship over a sizeable chunk of our students' lives. The most fundamental responsibility we have is to avoid wasting any of that precious time.

A Teacher Who Changed My Life

Actually, it's not really changing a person's life-- you can't change what hasn't happened yet. But "A Teacher Who Dramatically Affected the Trajectory of My Life" is too long for a headline.

The teacher was my elementary music teacher, Miss Gause, who affected my life in two huge ways.

First, she walked back to where the boys sat in the corner and droned away in monotone, and she harassed us into trying to match pitch. It was not the cool thing to do, but it got me to actually listen to what was going on. In those days, we took a music aptitude test-- a listening test-- in fourth and fifth grade, and that test either earned us a recommendation to start an instrument, or it didn't. In fourth grade, I flunked the test. In fifth grade I passed. The difference was Miss Gause. It is impossible to imagine what my life would have been like if I had not played an instrument. Most of my important friendships, both marriages, everything I've learned and applied about performance, the vast part of my community involvement-- all of those flowed from playing an instrument and being involved in music. If Miss Gause had ignored us and let us drone on, my life would look completely different today.

For the second moment of impact-- well, as shocking as this may be, when I was ten years old, I could be a bit of an asshat. One day I sat in the back of the room and entertained a few people with my hilarious imitation of Miss Gause's directing technique. For that, I received a paddling (it was the mid sixties). None of that affected me a great deal (other than realizing I would have to be a sneakier asshat better person). Here's what made an impression that I still carry with me today. Miss Gause caught me, yelled at me, and paddled me, wit what I remember as a fair amount of fury.

And then the business was done. She never brought it up again, she never threw it in my face, she never started treating me as if I were a Terrible Child, and she even let me have plum jobs like helping host the sixth grade talent show. This was a mind-blowing revelation-- that you could get in trouble for something, pay a penalty, and then continue on with a blank slate. I've tried never to forget that-- once a student screws up, I try to deal with it and then let it go.

I think of that incident more often these days. How would my infraction be handled by a modern school? My misbehavior would be entered into some digital behavior file, to settle in next to the time I got out of line on the way to water fountain and my sassy mouth in first grade and that time I punched my mom in the bladder when I was a fetus. In many schools, there is no over-done-moving on for students because members of the Cult of Data believe that if we can just track every bit of information about every notable (or even non-notable) action performed by the young human, we can better mold them and sculpt them and modify them into the person we think they should be. So we'll just keep accumulating more and more data in our Eternal Permanent Cyber-record as we travel the cradle-to-career pipeline, until we find ourselves facing a potential employer who says, "Well, the software suggests that based one some misbehavior when you were ten, you might be a bad risk for our corporate operations."

I know, objectively, that more information can be helpful in understnding our students and helping them, but the growth of creepy stalkerish Big Brother programs, complete with software that promises to analyze the student's personality-- well, that feels like something else. Something intrusive and disturbing and ultimately not very helpful to the student at all. Because I still remember the lesson-- deal with it, and then let it go and let the student start fresh

Now, I have one other major point to make about Miss Gause, and I hope she can forgive me for this--

She was not a particularly great teacher.

I think the gig was hard on her, the students kind of a pain in the butt. She did not make a lifelong career out of teaching, and she did not win awards and honors and accolades for her pedagogical genius. I suspect that under many systems of teacher evaluation, she might not have shone as the brightest star.

And yet, she is one of the most influential figures in my life. If circumstances had taken her in a different direction and I had never met her, I would literally be a whole different person.Would either of us have been helped by a high-stakes test-based accountability system or a heavy-duty Data Overlords program? It's hard to believe so.