Friday, November 16, 2018

Lessons From Lansing

At the beginning of the week I made the drive to Lansing, Michigan (shorter trip than flying, and I like a good drive) at the invitation of a member of the State Board of Education at their meeting on the subject of competency based education. I'll try to distill what I told them for this space at some point; in the meantime, there's video out there somewhere.

I'd never been to Lansing before, never addressed a state board of education before. It was an adventure, and there were a few lessons to be gleaned from the trip. In no particular order:

Architecture

While many state capitals favor a sort of neo-classical architecture, Lansing's main government building mall feels a lot like Soviet Bloc circa 1964. Their capitol building has a dome, but to my eyes it's weirdly elongated, like someone squeezed a photo while editing it. I'm sure the fact that it was mid-November and starting to snow didn't help.

The Coalition

Much notice has been paid to how Trump's election goobered up the left-right coalition of reformsters. The resistance to reform has also long been an alliance of left and right folks, whose concerns and goals have not always perfectly aligned. I was invited down there by a GOP board member who is allied with some activists on the right end of the spectrum, after being recommended to him by someone also on the right in the world of the resistance. I don't think I'm particularly far left, but I'm far left of these folks. And during the lunch break, I was invited to dine (okay-- grab something in the cafeteria) with my host and two of his Democratic colleagues.

I suspect (as do they) that when it's time to give focus to what they want to see rather than what they don't, they will find some things they disagree about, but at the moment they are allies. More importantly, they are able to talk to each other respectfully and with the assumption of good intent.



Legislative Tricks

Not the first time I'd heard of this one, but the game has been played, again, in Michigan.

Why is there now a conversation about CBE going on in Michigan? Because rather than talk about proposing it publicly or tossing it around in the appropriate committees with appropriate public discussion, legislators snuck it into the budget. This is a cool old trick. Let's say you want to support plastic widgets in your state, but you don't want to bring it up publicly because plastic widgets are controversial. Just add to the budget a $100 million grant item to foster the development of the plastic widget industry. Nobody has to talk about it, and if you do a really good job nobody will even notice it's there except the plastic widget industry folks. Michigan did that with CBE instead of plastic widgets.

The lesson here is always pay attention to the budgeting process in your state. Just because nobody announced a legislative plastic widget initiative doesn't mean there isn't one.

How The Bully Pulpit Works

As several members of the board noted, it's not that they haven't heard about CBE. They've heard plenty-- it's just all been happy talk about how wondrous it is. When a political chief, like a governor, decides to push a program, one of the levers they have is the ability to bombard key people with information of a certain flavor. I don't think I'd really thought about this a lot, but after my trip, my list of qualifications for elected office-- any elected office, no matter how minor, obscure or boring-- is the ability to study up on a subject and think for themselves. Honestly, I think I'm better with someone from the Other Side who can actually think like an independent grown-up than I am with someone from my own side who just follows along with whoever is next up the food chain.


The DeVosian Shadow

As you might imagine, it's still there. One of the board members is a DeVos BFF. She listened politely and then sweetly and passive aggressively put me in my place. It was kind of cute in a church lady kind of way.

Stand Up

This was a different thing for me. I'm used to taking my shots from behind a keyboard, or working in front of a self-selected-for-friendliness crowd, or working an audience of teens, or performing with either an instrument in my hand or my back to the audience. But if we're going to keep saying that teachers (active and retired) are education experts, then we should be prepared to stand up and speak our truth, without apologizing for it. Asking the opinion of an actual teacher is exactly what outfits like state boards of education should be doing, and lots of other groups, too. More of us should be putting ourselves out there, or pushing our colleagues who have the gift out there, and when the chance to speak comes, we need to take it. So I'm glad I did that.

Also, as far as Lansing goes, I am told there are very nice parts outside of the area in which I spent my 16 hours.

Thursday, November 15, 2018

You Can Do The Research

For some people research is fun. Seriously. I play in an old traditional town band, and a few decades back, I decided I would try to work up a history of the group. The project ended up taking me about thirty years to research and write. I read every local newspaper from 1854 until 1965. I have an entire cardboard box of bound notes and file cards.  I have been asked from time to time how I ever did such a thing, and while it would be nice to attribute it to my mighty reserve and sterling moral fiber, the real answer was that it was fun. Seriously. The writing was fun, but the research was really, really fun.

Some of us are wired that way, just as some of us are inclined to love curling or antique auto restoration. Unfortunately, "I love to spend hours in the library" doesn't earn you much social capital in high. Double unfortunately, much of what passes for "research" assignments n high school barely qualifies as research at all. The average shake and bake assignment boils down to "Go find information about this subject that has already been researched, collected, and written up by an expert in the field. The repeat back what they wrote, only don't use their exact words because that would be plagiarism." A rehashed report, even one that requires a number of sources (aka the one source that the paper was taken from plus however many other unexamined sources are required to fill out the bibliography), will not awaken the slumbering research beast within you.

I'll just check one more thing, then break for lunch. What? It's supper time?
My point is that, even if you've never been bitten before, it is not too late for you to be bitten by the research bug, and if you are actively involved in political and community issues, that bug can serve you well. And there's always more to discover. What I'm going to share now are tools that I learned about at the recent Network for Public Education conference in a presentation by the indispensable Mercedes Schneider, Andrea Gabor, and Darcie Cimarusti. Schneider writes as much as I do (more, actually, because she keeps cranking out books) but also does the legwork of unearthing new information for her pieces. Gabor is a great journalist, whose latest book about ed reform is sitting by my couch. Cimarusti has been an effective citizen activist for education (you mat know her online as Mother Crusader).

So here are three resources that you can easily make use of from the same location you're sitting in to read these words.

Form 990

Tax-exempt organizations, nonexempt charitable trusts, and section 527 political organizations file this form, and it will tell you a ton about the organization, including, in some cases, who is contributing to it. These are filed with the IRS, but they are also public information, and several websites on line will help you find the forms you seek (I have been using Foundation Center, but there are other options out there). Google 990 finder.

Different sorts of organizations fill out different versions of the 990; some have to report every single donor, and some don't. Schneider has uncovered a lot of juicy information following 990 trails, including the surprise revelation that Eli Broad's silent partner in Education Post was Laurene Jobs.

One pointer. As you can see from Schneider's tale to tracking EdPost, some groups like to fuzzy up their paper trail by using shell names. So you may be interested in "The National Watermelon Foundation" but can't find anything because they are actually legally filed under the name "Ocelots Hate Brussel Sprouts Association." Just be creative, scan websites for details, and keep making your best guess. Research requires some art and creativity.

Campaign Finances

Candidates for office who operate in your state must file paperwork, usually with your state's state department. Just google [your state] campaign finance reports. Some states have user friendly search engines within the records, and some don't. You'll just have to keep whacking away until you get it. For larger campaigns you may find yourself wading through pages and pages; lots of folks have their own workarounds for these, but you can use old-fashioned blunt force. The reports will tell you who is backing the candidate and who received money from the campaign. This is how some folks figured out that Betsy DeVos's American Federation of Students was behind a million-dollar contribution to the Scott Wagner (failed--ha!) campaign for governor.

Little Sis

I knew something about the first two tools, but Little Sis was a revelation that just blew me away. Little Sis (opposite of Big Brother-- get it?) is a database of connections. Plug in a person or an organization, and Little Sis will show you the people and organizations to which your entry is tied. Best of all, they have a tool called oligrapher that will render the connections as a web, the better to visualize how the various pieces tie together. You can click your way through the connections all day-- it's like eating potato chips. Bitter, disturbing potato chips.

See these tools applied to a particular project by looking at the report "Hijacked by Millionaires." Or just go to the site and play.

One note about Little Sis-- they depend on the help of citizen researchers across the country, and you may find gaps in their data base. If you can, feel free to help plug them. Connections can't go in without documentation of some sort, but the site will tell you the rest of what you need to know to help.

All of these tools provide one of the researcher's sweetest, most seductive thrills-- seeing something you weren't even looking for so that you think, "Hmmm-- well that's interesting." There's an entire world of rabbit holes waiting for you to fall down them. More importantly, there's a whole world of information that is accessible to you, so that you don't have to wait for someone else to answer the question that has been gnawing at you. You can do the research.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Anti-Test, Pro-Computer

Chalkbeat today notes the growing trend of reformster discontent with the Big Standardized Test, a thread which apparently emerged at the latest soiree thrown by the Center for Reinventing Public Education, a group that has pushed ed reform for years.

But intentionally or not, Matt Barnum  also captured part of what is driving this shift.

Some members of the Thinky Tank set (with Jay Greene in the forefront) have been noticing that test results don't seem to really mean anything. But there's another reform group that is sour on testing:

The way we’re doing [assessment] now — that is so time-, age-, grade-based — is really constraining for those innovators that are developing models that will support all kids.

That quote comes from Susan Patrick of The International Association for K-12 Online Learning  (iNACOL), an organization whose bread and butter is tech based education, and which has thrown itself whole-heartedly behind Competency Based Education and Personalized [sic] Learning. Their opposition to the BS Test is signaled by Patrick's quote. If they are going to sell a system that lets students learn whatever whenever at whatever speed they wish, they need to remove the issue if a giant standardized test at the end f the ear.

In other words, the old approach to ed reform is cramping the style of reform 2.0. The 2.0 version is pointed firmly at the unbundling of education so that stdents can acquire their competencies and proficiencies and badges wherever and whenever and from whomever. This shift has the double advantage of a sort of ju-jitsu move-- people who are busy running away from the BS Test can be ushered straight into the Competency Based Proficiency Personalized tent. Reform 1.0 has become a marketing tool for Reform 2.0

It's worth noting that even some of the reformsters themselves haven't caught on yet. The repeated complaints about testing at the event drew this bemused quote from Sandy Kress, one of the creators of No Child Left Behind and therefor one of the fathers of the test-centered education reform movement:

“I was worried, frankly, about the conversation earlier today” on testing, he said during one panel. “How it is that the reform community gets to a position of wanting to throw it out as opposed to improve it? I don’t know, I don’t get it.”

Oh, honey. First, let's pause to note for the bazillionth time the irony of reformsters saying things that public ed supporters used to say all the time (how many times have we asked why it was necessary to trash and replace public schools rather than fixing them). Second, some in the reformy community want to throw them out because they've finally begun to understand that the tests don't do what anybody ever said they were going to do (and they never will). But more importantly, a whole bunch of folks in the reform community have decided to cash in on the Next Big Thing, which is education delivered via computer using mass customization, marketed as personalization (and which will set the stage for the Next Next Big Thing).

This is what happens when your ed reform movement is powered, not by education professionals making educational judgments based on their professional expertise, but by educational amateurs who are not knowledgeable about education, but who are adept at attracting piles of money. This is what happens when you unleash market forces in the education world. This is what happens when the people behind the curtain aren't saying "This would really help students" but are instead saying "We can make a buttload of money with this." Until the Next Big Thing. The Big Standardized Test is now the Last Big Thing. It doesn't work well enough to present expanding possibilities, and people who actually care about education want it gone.

This shift isn't going to happen overnight. Testing has put down deep roots, particularly in the way that test scores have been widely accepted as a proxy for school and teacher effectiveness. For people who want simple answers, test scores are about as clear and simple as they come (never mind whether they're accurate). Testing is cemented in education law. But then, ESSA opened the door wide for proficiency competency based algorithm driven mass personalized education customization. Damn-- I hope somebody comes up with a good name for this monstrosity slouching toward the classroom before it's all the way here.

Six Reasons Not To Get Excited About New SAT Scores

A few weeks ago the big--well, not big, medium-sized, maybe--news came from the College Board, which announced that both participation and scores are up, as well as the percentage of college-ready students. Here's why you can comfortably not care.

It's 8 Points

The average score "jumped" from 1060 to 1068. That's 0.7%. If your child retook the test in hopes of a higher score, and that's all they squeaked out, nobody would be trading high fives.

A great job-- but will the SAT tell you if you're ready?


It's An Average (And It's Not News)

If Michael Jordan comes to stay with my family, the average number of points scored in an NBA game goes up dramatically for my household. Nevertheless, the number of points I've scored in an NBA game remains zero.

In fact, the SAT score has always been subject to the make-up of the group taking the test. For years, while folks were chicken littling about dropping SAT scores, what was actually happening was that more and more low-scoring students were taking the test. Meanwhile, each sub-group was actually improving their scores, even as the low-growing sub-groups increased in number. Averages are a lousy way to measure how students are doing.
Participation Numbers Are Coerced

Over the past two years, several states have phased in a requirement that every student (usually in the junior year) must take the SAT. Right now, fifteen states require it, while a few others push it as an alternative. This has been a huge coup for the College Board, which is fighting to keep its market share. It's equivalent of having a state declare that all state employees must drive a Ford as their personal vehicle.
It also means that an increase in participation numbers doesn't mean that individual students are flocking to take the SAT of their own free will.

The College Board Has No Idea Who's College Ready

The increase in students who have hit the benchmarks is not exactly awe-inspiring-- from 46% to 47%. But the benchmarks themselves are not exactly Gospel. Here's the College Board explaining benchmarks while simultaneously demonstrating their command of passive voice:

Students are considered college- and career-ready when their SAT section scores meet both the Math and the Evidence-Based Reading and Writing benchmarks.

Are considered college- and career- ready by whom, exactly? Based on what? Will the guy who's hiring welders say, "Your SAT verbal is really solid, so that's good enough for me"? Will the college theater department say, "You've got good SAT math scores, so you clearly have a future studying acting"?

The college board admits that college readiness is a continuum, not a solid cut-off line. They also advise that no student should be discouraged from attending college based on SAT scores. The language suggests that the benchmarks aren't so much based on an understanding of what math and reading skills are needed for college- and career-readiness, but are more of a number-crunching exercise based on previous testees: "
Students with an SAT Math section score that meets or exceeds the benchmark have a 75 percent chance of earning at least a C in first-semester, credit-bearing college courses in algebra, statistics, pre-calculus, or calculus." These sorts of studies have been conducted in the past, but that means the benchmarks are always looking backwards. 
The Gains Should Be Bigger
In 2012, hot off his stint as co-creator the Common Core, David Coleman was hired to run the College Board. His immediate goal was to redesign the SAT, making it more Core-aligned. Having rewritten the standards for schools across the country, he now set out to create a new SAT that would more closely fit what those standards were producing. So the test prep that was taking over classrooms throughout the US should also have been test prep for the SAT. Scores should have climbed through the roof.
The College Board initially made some noises about the new SAT being impervious to test prep, but that tune has changed.
The SAT Measures SAT Test Prep
Both this year and last, we've been told that the free Khan Academy tutorials have boosted SAT scored tremendously. The point is supposed to be that getting coached to a good SAT score is no longer a privilege of the rich, but is available for free to anyone (with an internet connection). The boosters are so excited about the Free To Everyone point that they seem to miss the other part of what they're saying-- the SAT measures how well the student has been coached to take the SAT. We could talk about the ways that the test favors students from a particular socio-economic background, but in many ways that's part of the same point-- the SAT measures SAT-taking skills.
The SAT is still scrambling to avoid sinking into irrelevance, while colleges and universities increasingly drop the SAT requirement for admission and research continues to show high school GPA a better predictor of college success. Today's news may give them a helpful boost, but there's no need to organize a parade just yet.

Sunday, November 11, 2018

ICYMI: Armistice Day Edition (11/11)

Some reading from this week. Remember to share what you find interesting.

Five Myths About Pay for Success

Yet another method for Wall Street to undermine education in order to make a buck.

How Canada Became an Education Superpower

As always, I'll dispute the metrics used, but still an interesting look at how Canada handles education.

The Truth About Charters College Acceptance Rates

An op-ed from the El Paso Times explains why folks should hesitate to be impressed by charters that claim all their grads go to college.

Not Just Philanthropy

How the philanthropists who back ed reform consider political contributions an important part of their strategy (or maybe vice versa).

The Backlash Against Screen Time at School  

The headline is completely misleading, but this article provides another nice follow up on the silicon valley wonderschool, AltSchool.

Why I Dread Returning To American Public School  

She's coming back from Germany, where families pay a little more, and get a lot more.

The Long Record of Voter Rejection of Vouchers  

A great compendium by Edd Doerr of all the times voters have said no to vouchers.

Bill Gates Throws More Money Around     

The TFA-er founded Educators For Excellence is just another reformster astro-turf shell game-- but Gates is shoveling money at them.

Why Don't People Vote for Public Education?

Nancy Flanagan addresses one of those great modern mysteries.

Grit Is Sh!t     

A look at how grit becomes an excuse to avoid helping students who need the assistance.


Saturday, November 10, 2018

Was GOP Defeated For Not Being Reformy Enough

You can say many things about Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform (CER), but you can't say that she's not seriously devoted to the cause of privatizing education through charters, vouchers, and any other reformy tools you care to mention. And while folks have many theories about why, exactly, the Democrats took control of the House, Allen has her own theory--

They weren't reformy enough.

Her theory ran in the Washington Examiner, and it reads like a dispatch from an alternate dimension. But, she says, she has proof. Well, then- proceed. Let's learn a little more about the business of selling reform.

Allen has conducted hundreds of meetings in the 115th Congress with "members, staff and anyone seemingly with authority," so I suppose we could also call her a lobbyist for reforminess. She says she has had three goals "embraced in principle by the majority party and some in the minority."

This is, in fact, one technique for selling reform-- cloak your product in an appealing principle. Over the past few decades, we've had a parade of reformster ideas that sound great in principle-- it's only when people have had to face the specifics that they've noticed how bad the ideas are. No Child Left Behind sounds noble. Common Core sounds swell. Nowadays, competency based education and personalized learning sound like super ideas. Until you have to deal with how, exactly, these things look on the ground. Reformsters understand this-- the personalized learning folks figured out right away that they needed to downplay the "plunk your kid in front of a computer screen" side of the biz. And here comes an excellent example from Allen.

This is "education goal" number one:

The least controversial is the idea that infrastructure dollars, once moving as a package, should include incentives for rural communities to complete or expand their digital footprint. To get additional funds, schools and districts would be required to adopt innovative approaches to delivering education, even if the instructor lives outside the district, the state, or the country.

Doesn't that sound more appealing than "bribe rural districts to promote cyber schools"?

Her second goal is, in fact, to promote competency based and personalized education, two ideas that sound great. Hell, they've always sounded great, because while their fans want to promote them as a hot new idea, there is nothing hot or new about them-- unless you add computers. Allen beats the drum about the old factory model, which remains baloney.

Her third idea is "private-sector-funded education, workforce, and apprenticeship scholarships," building on the reformy idea that for certain people, education is really just supposed to be vocational prep. Students should learn about how best to serve employers. Oh, and she folds this in with a tax credit-- contribute to a program that will focus on producing meat widgets for your business and you can get out of paying taxes to support schools for everybody else.

She even had a bill for that last one-- HR 5153, sponsored by good old Lloyd Smucker-- and its purpose was simple--

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow a credit against tax for charitable donations to nonprofit organizations providing workforce training and education scholarships to qualified elementary and secondary students.

Look carefully. Buried beneath under all the rhetoric about workforce training is a federal voucher bill.

Allen says she knows just hundreds of people who supported this idea. Well, yes-- so do I, and Allen must have felt hopeful because Ed Secretary Betsy DeVos is one of them. It's great-- defund public education and funnel money to vouchers all at the same time. But Allen complains here that while lots of people would talk to her, at the end of the day, the House wouldn't get off its ass and actually do anything. She heard lots of recommendations, but nothing happened. Perhaps House members are aware that voucher bills are not particularly popular with the voters.

Now Allen slips all the way into an alternate universe. She says that education was the Number 2 issue in this election. Really? She doesn't offer any source for that, and I don't imagine she could, because while grass roots folks elevated the issue in several specific states, mostly (as always) nobody cared all that much about education. Allen calls the 155th Congress "the most disinterested I've ever seen" which I don't disagree with, but she also calls Paul Ryan a "veteran education reform advocate." No, can't say I've seen any evidence of that, other than his desire to strip as many functions away from elected government as possible, which does dovetail nicely with the privatization of education. She contrasts the 115th with the halcyon days when Newt Gingrich reformified DC schools and President Clinton embraced charters and John Boehner focused on building up education (did that happen? really?)

Because (here comes her point) the GOP failed to realize that the public wants ed reform.

Her further evidence is that some anti-public ed governors won. She also notes that those loud protests against privatization were "fanned by the teachers' unions" (Allen really hates the teachers' unions) and that "red for ed" is "now all but dead." Allen skips mentioning the successful Arizona campaign that led to a resounding rejection of super-vouchers in that state. Also, the unions are "licking their wounds" from Janus, though I can tell you this-- unions were braced for the loss of many members after Janus and have been surprised to see that losses haven't been as bad as they expected. So, not so bad on the wounds, there.

Allen tosses up some other carefully chosen races as "evidence," and dismisses losses like Scott Walker's spanking as a problem with "weak candidates." Any race that fits her theory is evidence; any race that does not is the result of something else. It's a combination of cherry-picking, spurious correlations, and starting from a false premise.

But her message is as clear as it is false-- anybody who wants to win an election has to stand up for reformsters and privatization. In a sense, I agree with her. I encourage any candidates who are solidly behind the move to privatize public education, to waste tax dollars on unaccountable voucher programs, and to replace teachers with computer screens-- please campaign on those things loudly and clearly so that the voters can understand just what a bad idea it would be to vote for you.

Friday, November 9, 2018

Toolkit for Teacher and Student Privacy

Data is the new oil, and we are confronted almost daily with stories of folks trying to drill the next high-producing well. Retailers trade loyalty card perks for customer data. Social media trade connectivity for personal data-- tons of it. And schools provide a rich opportunity to trade educational programs and assistance for a rich deposit of data in students (and teachers) who may not even be aware that Big Data is gathering data points by the bushel from their simplest activities. Industry leading Summit Learning, a charter school group that has placed their software and materials in over 300 public schools, has admitted that they share the data they gather with 18 "partners." The practice is not new; generations of test takers filled out the personal information pages with the PSAT; in 2013, the College Board and ACT were sued over the practice of selling student information. The process has just been accelerated by technology. Whatever you're doing, if you're doing it on a computer, you're leaving a data trail.

More erosions of privacy occur daily. One of the items that sent West Virginia teachers out on strike last year was a rule that all teachers would carry a device that monitored their movement and activity. Last year saw incidents of a hacker group holding school district data hostage, and backing up their demands by sending threatening emails to parents.

Not everyone fully grasps what's happening, and even then, many are unsure what to do about it. To fill those gaps, the Badass Teachers Association and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy have issued the Educator Toolkit for Teacher and Student Privacy. (Disclosure: I did a small bit of advisory work on the project.)

The toolkit explains, in frightening detail, why teacher and student data is vulnerable, including, in both cases, the fact that ownership of the data is not always clear. There is a full chapter laying out the pertinent privacy laws as they currently stand (if you think you know FERPA, you may be unaware of the loopholes that have been added over the past decade). Is that data wall in your child's classroom legal? Probably not. If the teacher wants to use a free app to monitor student behavior and communicate with families, is that okay? The answer turns out to be complicated. And what are the rules for that survey that the school just handed out to all students? The laws have become complex, and most parents and teachers did not go to law school. The toolkit provides some simple guidance.

Educators are being pitched all manner of educational technology these days. Some are meant to help educate students. Some are meant to mine students for data. Some are meant to do both. Schools need to be doing their homework before adopting, and the toolkit lays out the questions that should be asked. In particular, schools need to be wary of black box algorithms, programs that use super-secret proprietary software to make educational decisions. If a human walked into your classroom and said, "Those three students should be in the advanced group, but I won't tell you how I decided that," you would show that human the door. Software is no different. And if any vendor answers teacher requests for transparency with some version of, "My ability to make money is more important than your ability to do your job," the teacher has learned some valuable information about that vendor.

The toolkit offers ten teacher rules for using social media (or not). The kit also provides practical tips for protecting privacy, and for advocating for better protections for all. And as an extra treat, an appendix shows the results of a survey given to teachers about technology in their schools. Almost half of those responding said their school uses an online app or program to track student behavior. And well over half reported that their school requires them to use certain computer based programs and materials. That "requires" can become aggressive, as witnessed by a Florida teacher whose set of favorite textbooks was taken from her room by her principal in order to force her to use the district's new digitized textbook.

We're just beginning to see where all this data mining can lead, particularly when the various sources are combined. Students can have their careers picked for them by graduation. Employers can order up very specific employees ("I want a person who never argued with authority in school, is good at algebra, has no family history of major illness, and whose social media shows them to be stable and quiet"). The data itself, and the people who generate it, can even become a commodity that investors can bet on and make money by manipulating.

The toolkit certainly doesn't have all the answers, but if you are a teacher or a parent, particularly one who's just starting to realize there's something to worry about in our new data era, this is a good place to start. The toolkit was supported by grants from the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, the American Federation of Teachers, and the NEA Foundation, and you can access a copy right here on line.\

Originally posted at Forbes