Teaching Machines: Read This Book

 Over at Forbes.com today I've posted a responsible grown-up look at the new Audrey Watters book Teaching Machines. But here at the blog, I can just go ahead and go full fanboy on this work, a book I was so looking forward too that I pre-ordered it twice.

Watters opens with Sal Khan selling the same old chestnut-- factory-model school was invented a hundred years ago and it hasn't changed a hair on its head since, until I rolled out my awesome ed tech innovation. And then, in a compact, readable 263 pages, she sets the record straight.

If you follow the education debates, ed tech division, virtually everything in this book will sound familiar, because it turns out that for the last 100 years, ed tech's pitch has stayed pretty much the same. They have promised game-changing innovation, aimed for behavioral engineering, and delivered almost none of what they've promised. It still matters though, as she points out:

Their ongoing influence can be found in the push for both personalized technologies and behavioral engineering. But teaching machines’ most significant legacy may be, quite broadly, in the technocratic culture that they helped engender in education.

Watters gives ample attention to B. F. Skinner and the focus on behavioral engineering. "If behavior was controlled and controllable by the environment, then what better way to make adjustments to individuals--and, as Skinner imagined, to all of society--than by machine."

She's located so many great quotes, some of which are truly astonishing.

"The only thing that matters is the future," one entrepreneur commented. "I don't even know why we study history. It's entertaining I guess--the dinosaurs and the Neanderthals and the Industrial Revolution, and stuff like that. But what already happened doesn't really matter. You don't need to know that history to build on what they made. In technology, all that matters is tomorrow."

But we ignore history at our peril. And the history that Watters lays out shows that we're living in the echoes of earlier days. 

Testing had quickly become a thriving industry, and vendors were "circling the world with psychological supplies."

That's from 1927.

But he insisted that the machine would actually free the teacher "from the mechanical tasks of her profession--the burden of paperwork and routine drill--so that she may be a real teacher, not largely a clerical worker."

That's from 1925.

Or the Ohio State students pointing out that the teaching machine would in no way alleviate the dullness and drudgery of test taking. In the 1920s.

This is the story of how teaching machines began and grew and failed and failed and failed, but still managed to promote a view of education as an engineering project. It's about a long-standing belief in programmed learning, in way to standardize teaching. And it is, ironically, a story about how ed tech has stayed just as stuck for 100 years as the education system that it accuses of being unchanged. 

This is a great book, as easily readable as Watters; hugely popular blog Hack Education. Watters is smart, funny, and hugely knowledgeable in a way that makes it possible for her to connect many dots and see both the forest and the trees. Her blog was one of the first I read regularly when I first fell down the edubloggosphere rabbit hole, and one of the biggest treats of my ed commentary career was a few years back when I appeared on a panel with her at a Network for Public Education conference. She's the real deal, a scholar anchored in the real world, as well as a sharp, insightful writer. There have been so many great education books to come out in the past two years; this belongs on your shelf beside them. 

Jeb Bush Gets It Wrong

 Earlier this month, Jeb Bush released an op-ed to argue against "cuts" (more on that in a moment) to federal spending on charter schools. It's loaded with specious arguments. Let's tick off the items

First, Bush argues that our current education is designed as

a one-size-fits-all factory model of education, created in the 1890s to build a workforce for a factory-model economy.

The "factory model" rhetoric has been debunked many times, but Bush's variation is particularly silly. At the dawn on the 20th century, the enrollment rate for 5 through 19 year olds was around 30% for Blacks and 60% for Whites. Nobody was in school to "build a workforce," because the workforce was composed primarily of people who had not finished school; child labor was everywhere, and it took several decades in the 20th century to pass federal child labor laws. In short, factories were not depending on or even much looking for high school graduates.

public charter school

Bush still wants to push the industry's continued insistence that charter schools are public schools. They aren't. They aren't even interested in saying so when it doesn't suit their purposes. And the courts often agree. A public school operates transparently and is run by elected taxpayers. It has to account for every dollar it spends. And the public owns the building and the materials in it. Also, it doesn't operate as a shell for a massive for-profit business. A school that does meet all those requirements is not a truly public school. A school that doesn't meet any of those requirements is absolutely not a public school.

Unfortunately, there are special interests — and those wedded to the past — who cling to an outdated system. Rather than creating a modern education system that adapts to students and gives them the freedom and flexibility to find their right school and learning environment, they wrongly force each to conform to a standardized and obsolete approach.

The irony of this complaint, coming from Mr. Let's Make Everyone Use The One Size Fits All Common Core, is thick. Back when Bush was pushing that failed monstrosity, millions of teachers complained that the Core would restrict them and keep them from doing their job--which capable teachers understand is to meet each student where she is and get her what she needs to grow and learn. I would point out that schools are different from when Jeb was attending in the late sixties/early seventies, but of course he went to Ivy Preptastic Philips Andover.

But in the Jeb world, teachers are a naughty special interest that, for some reason. Maybe teachers are for some reason opposed to finding newer and better ways to do the work they've devoted their lives to/ Or maybe Bush is just full of it on this point.

But he needs a villain somewhere, because naughty forces are Up To Something.

This outdated mentality has led the U.S. House to pass a federal budget that cuts education funding to millions of public school students who choose to attend public charter schools.

This is wrong on several important points.

First, the "cuts." He's talking about the Charter Schools Fund, a federal stack of money set up to fund the launch and expansion of charter schools. First established in 1994, the CSF has doled out roughly $4 billion dollars, and according to the Network for Public Education, at least $1 billion of that has gone to waste and fraud, including charters that didn't even open. The CSF was supposed to get a $40 million bump this year; instead the House decided to leave the CSF standing at $40. So talking about cuts is the same old dodge used by many advocates of one cause or another-- nothing was actually cut, but they didn't get the raise they were looking.

Next, note that Bush is claiming that this will take funding from millions of students, as if they're going to be tossed out of their current charter because the feds cut off the money tap. But CSF monies are used to launch or expand charters, not sustain them. 

However, there is a problem for charters in the part of the budget that Bush quotes. It's this:

SEC. 314. None of the funds made available by this Act or any other Act may be awarded to a charter school that contracts with a for-profit entity to operate, oversee or manage the activities of the school.

Charters have long slid by on the distinction-without-a-difference between for profit charters and nonprofit charters owned and/or operated by for profit businesses. This would slam that door shut on some profiteers.

This all makes Bush sad, because, you know, it's all For The Children (though at no point does he suggest that the charter operators simply forego their profits so that they can keep taking care of the kids, because For The Children has limits). This is the most disingenuous part of the charter argument--why, exactly, does a system of robust charters have to rest on companies making a load of profit at public expense. The answer, of course, is that it doesn't (and there are plenty of charters that stand as proof of this). 

In short, anyone arguing that the "no for-profit" clause is bad for children is slinging baloney, because the real explanation they need toi provide is one that shows why charter schools can only exist if someone is profiting from them. 

Bush tries to float some tired, vague and unsubstantiated claims that according to one test (NAEP) some charters sometimes get better results (i.e. test scores) for some students. "Education choice helps all students succeed," Bush says, except that after a couple of decades of choiciness, there's still no compelling body of evidence to suggest that it's true. 

Also, now that there's pandemic stuff going on, choice is even more popular. Especially in Bush's old state of Florida, where the governor's declaration says that public schools may not mandate masks--but charters and private can do as they wish. It is the most blatant version of the policy that Bush spearheaded back in his gubernatorial days--just keep undercutting the public schools and make the charters and privates look better and better by comparison.

He's sure that all this is politics, which makes sense, because federal support for charters was born of politics, and Bush has used politicking to further the charter industry and to push Common Core, and also hoped that his education politics would give him a signature issue to help propel him further in politics. And of course, where there's politics, there are evil unions:

Teachers’ unions and their allies in Congress see students who choose public charter schools as a threat to the education model that they control. And unions fear that choice will lead to fewer students attending schools that fund their private coffers.

The subtext is that same old narrative. Teachers unions control the school system (although, when they were on his side for pushing the Core, that didn't do any good), and the school system itself is just a giant scheme to collect money for the union. Is every teacher in on it (even the ones who vote GOP), or are they all just dupes? And is Bush aware that charter schools can be unionized as well, and that the unions actually tread lightly around charters because they have charter teaching members?

Bush throws in a few more whoppers. Cutting charter funding will hurt students, "especially special- needs students" except that charters are notorious for squeezing out IEP students or just exercising the clause that says a charter school is an exercise of parental choice and therefor voids any rights to an IEP. 

But "students over systems," declares Bush as he demands that Congress put back money that funds a charter system and not students. Plenty of charter fans will keep beating these same drums, but in the end, this House budget proposal slows growth on a fund that is rife with fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars, and closes the door for profiteers to hoover up taxpayer dollars for their own private profit.

ICYMI: Stone Skipping Edition (8/22)

 This is the weekend on which, every year, I judge a stone skipping competition in my small town. It's a fun time.

Ethics Complaint Filed in North Carolina  

Lately it's been one damn thing after another in NC. Now it turns out one of the heads of the legislature's education committee forgot to mention that his wife is connected to a chartter school.

Has school ventilation improved as schools open?

Nancy Bailey looks at one of the most basic protections against Covid spread in schools. 

What would it rake to do what's right for kids

Nancy Flanagan speaks to the importance of leadership during these chaotic times.

South Florida bus drivers quit.

Along with everything else, bus drivers are an issue. In Pittsburgh, school's opening was pushed back because of a bus driver shortage. And in Florida, they're quitting.

Critical Race Theory and the New Massive Resistance

Mark Keierleber at the 74 has a great piece connecting the current CRT flap to Virginia's fight against desegregation.

Classrooms taken over by rats

From the 'so you think you've got troubles" file. In California, a school has a big rat problem.

LAUSD teachers share why they quit

You already know this story, but here it is in black and white.

Louisiana BESE abruptly adjourns due to unruly public response to masking

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider has the story of a state board shut down by more of the anti-maskers.

 

PA: Charter Operators Find Another Way To Take Over A District

 Chester Upland School District is located in the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania. It has been through the wringer. More specifically, it has been through just about every wringer a school district can go through, from segregation through financial crises through an attack by charter interests. The full background can be found here, with following chapters here, here, and here.

Short version. The district's financial woes put it in receivership with the state. The local charter operator (a huge money-maker for a businessman named Vahan Gureghian) pushed the courts to open the district up to charter school takeover. 

For a brief moment this summer, it looked like the district had won a reprieve. The newest court-appointed receiver (and previous CUSD superintendent) Juan Baughn considered three proposals to take over CUSD elementary schools (throughout all of this, no charters have expressed interest in taking over the high school, which creates its own set of issues) and then rejected all of them, citing, in part, the strong voices of public opposition to the takeover.

And then Baughn resigned.

Chester Community Charter School (Gureghian's business) sent a letter to the court announcing that it intended to appeal the decision. Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Department of Education petitioned the court (Judge Barry Dozor) to appoint Dr. Michael Pladus to the post. Pladus has thirty years of experience as an educator as well as working as Chief Recovery Officer of CUSD. He had the support of the state and the district. However, as laid out in a press release from the Education Law Center, the night before the hearing in which Pladus was to be considered, the Friends of CCCS filed a motion proposing an alternative-- Nafis Nichols. Nichols had put his hat in the ring via private letter the week before.

Nafis Nichols is currently the Chief Financial Officer of the City of Chester. He's done some drug free counseling and community outreach work. He attended college but never graduated. The court heard testimony in his support from Chester Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland and Senator John I. Kane, which is not super-unusual. But Judge Dozor also listened to the Friends of Chester Community Charter, Chester Charter School for the Arts, and Chester Community Charter Schools. That's nuts--to give the charter schools a major say in the selection of the person who will fashion the fate of the public, and make a decision the next time a charter takeover proposal appears, is a mind-boggling conflict of interest, like letting McDonalds have a major say to a zoning board hearing about whether a Burger King can open up.

The court order (dated August 13) notes that Nichols is a graduate of Chester High, that he meets the statutory requirements, that his "public and private sector experiences identifies [sic] strengths in management, book keeping, human resources, public relations, grant applications, contract negotiations, collective bargaining agreements..." Even the court is unable to pretend that Nichols knows anything at all about education and schools. But, of course, as you've already realized, the court passed over the state-approved education veteran in favor of the charter-supported receiver for the public school system.

The court also notes that the community is "very much engaged" and that community support is "crucial." Well, that's a problem.

CUSD is a district where trust has been trampled. Teachers have been asked to work without pay. Money just kind of disappears. City leaders honor the charter leaders, and school board members show up to celebrate charter school openings. Vahan Gureghian was the top contributor to Thaddeus Kirkland's election campaign (Kirkland, who used to be a state representative, has worked with Gureghian before). Judge Dozor reportedly said during the August 5 hearing that charter's are an integral part of the district "and it's going to remain that way." If CUSD has a champion anywhere in the local power structure, it's hard to see where.

The story of the charter attempted takeover has been a story of hidden back-room deals and a distinct lack of transparency, eventually revealing that the agendas being served are not the agenda of Chester's student or the Chester Upland public school system. The reprieve is over and it appears that charter operators have figured out more than one way to grab the profitable pieces of a dismantled, beleagured school district. 

NH: Prenda Just Hit The Jackpot. Who Are They?

 New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu just gave Prenda a whopping $6 million cut of the granite state's pandemic school relief. It's a relatively small slice (the full pile of money is $156 million), but it's notably a larger per-pupil amount than the state gives in normal "adequate aid." So who is Prenda, and what is the money for, exactly?

Prenda is a company riding the new microschools wave. Microschools are the next evolutionary strep in homeschooling. Says the Micro Schools Network website, "Imagine the old one-room schoolhouse. Now bring it into the modern era." Or imagine you're homeschooling, and a couple of neighbors ask if you'd take on their children as well. Or to look at it another way, imagine back to the beginning of a public system, only this time, your system would only include the students and families you wanted to include.

Microschools like to emphasize their modern awesomeness. From the Micro Schools Network site: While no two micro schools are identical, most share several common traits: a small student population, an innovative curriculum, place-based and experiential learning, the use of cutting-edge technology, and an emphasis on mastering or understanding material. The education that micro schools provide is highly personalized."

The microschools movement seems marked by a lot of educational amateur columbussing--the breathless announcement of "discoveries" plenty of people already knew. Again, from the network's website:

Teachers typically guide students’ curiosity rather than lecture at them. Instead of utilizing a fixed curriculum, they integrate subjects that students are passionate about into daily lesson plans and account for each student’s unique strengths, learning style, and existing knowledge.

Because nobody who works professionally in education ever thought of any of those things. Or you can check out a video from Prenda founder/CEO Kelly Smith in which he may tell you ecitedly about how cool it was running his own microschool and seeing students become lively and excited about something they had learned. The microschool movement seems to be very much excited about its discovery of the wheel.

Microschools have plenty of fans. Tom Vander Ark, a techo-reform cheerleader who's been making a living at it for quite a while--he thinks microschools are a Next Big Thing. Betsy DeVos has been sending microschools some love. And Prenda itself got a healthy shot of investment money from a newish Koch-Walton initiative called VELA Education Fund. Headed up by Meredith Olson (a VP at Koch's Stand Together) and Beth Seling (with background in the charter school biz), the board of VELA is rounded out by reps from Stand Together and the Walton Foundation. VELA "invests in family-focused education innovations."

Prenda provides "inspiring adults the tools and structure needed to support the young learners in their lives." A Prenda pod does not include a teacher, but instead uses a "guide." And Prenda reassures you that "caring about people and being passionate about learning are more important than transcripts, certificates and pedagogy." You don't need any of that fancy professional educator stuff. Just a guide with her heart in the right place.

This comes through in all of Kelly Smith's appearances--he comes across as a warm fuzzy kind of guy. What he's not is an education guy. BYU degree in Physics, then MIT for Plasmas and Fusion. He's worked for energy companies doing grid platform management and building analytics. In 2013 he founded Code Clubs of Arizona. He started Prenda in 2016, then in 2018 launched a the first pod "with seven neighborhood kids." He discovered that teaching children is cool. Boom. New business.

I could pull miles of miles of quotes from the Prenda website that are indistinguishable from any actual school (students should see themselves as learners, build confidence and skills, nurture love of learning and creativity, etc). Every human is a natural born learner. They do blended learning (aka, time in front of screens). They do collaborative learning! Personalization! Also, did you know it's hard to teach people who don't want to learn?

Prenda enrolls students in "partner schools," but Prenda and the guide in the pod do the actual educating; it's setup a little reminiscent of the homeschooling charter schools of California, which turned out to be a huge scam. Prior to landing the huge New Hampshire gig, Prenda's reach was not all that amazing. Some charter and online schools--one per state in Louisiana, Utah, Colorado and Kansas. Three "partners" in Arizona, their home base. In Arizona, they attracted the attention of the attorney general with a very lucrative deal with EdKey, operators of the Sequoia online school--Sequoia enrolled the students, Prenda "taught" them (with the aid of guides), and then the two companies split the $8,000 per pupil revenue. 

Prenda has said it wants to be the Uber of education, but that really only makes sense if Uber were a service where the state paid the company and then you drove (or "guided") yourself to your destination. Prenda does exist in a grey area that allows it to escape virtually all oversight. In Arizona, they don't need a charter, don't have to get their curriculum approved, and are not subject to any kind of oversight or audits.

There's no explanation out there of why Sununu decided to spend $6 million on Prenda of all things. Their administration claimed that the microschools "are particularly helpful to students who have experienced learning loss and will thrive with more individualized attention," but when the individual attention comes from a guide with no educational training (but lots of caring) and a computer program, it's unclear how helpful it will be. Last fall they had 400 pods of roughly ten each in action; there's virtually no information about how well these things actually work.

And yet, New Hampshire is handing over a sweet $6 mill in federal dollars. Said Rep Mel Myler (D), member of the House Committee on Education:

Chris Sununu's decision to use federal funds to advance his anti-public school agenda and help a shady for-profit organization, rather than providing public schools the resources they need to prepare for the next phase of the pandemic, could have serious consequences for our teachers and students.

Good luck to the children of New Hampshire.

NH: New Voucher Boondoggle Under Examination

 New Hampshire has weathered a variety of voucher proposals over the years, always turning them back, and the latest seemed like no exception. Having turned the legislature Republican, the voucher fans were hankering to finally get their way, but when over 3000 people showed up at hearings to explain how much they didn't like the idea, the GOP graciously yielded to the will of the electorate. Ha ha--just kidding. They tucked the voucher bill into the budget. 

It's a smart maneuver if you're more concerned with getting your way than with listening to the voters, but the voucher program is not out of the pine-filled woods yet.

Tomorrow (Thursday, August 19), the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (JLCAR) is set to vote on interim rules for the "Education Freedom Accounts" (another version of the education savings account, beloved by hard-right folks because it both finances private school vouchers and gets rich people out of paying taxes).

JLCAR is not tasked with determining whether the voucher law is a good law or a bad one (spoiler alert: it is one of the worst). But their legal team does look for places where it might conflict with existing laws, and they have spotted some issues:

Minimal oversight and "impermissible delegation of authority." ESA's are notable for their lack of oversight; the family gets a voucher (often in the form of a loaded debit card) and they can spend it on whatever educationy thing they like. There's a middle-person, a "scholarship organization" that distributes the money. In New Hampshire's version, nobody screens the the scholarship organization or vendors on the EFA eligible list (just ask, and you're on), and a long list of ways that the state is not allowed to dictate or limit the vendors (including, of course, religion). Nor are there any limits on which families can apply for a voucher, which really broadens the way that the vouchers will be spent (if you're already sending your kid to Philips Exeter, you don't need help with education basics, but a voucher might be nice for a computer upgrade or "educational" vacation).

No requirements for criminal background checks. Along with the many ways that vendors are not subject to oversight is this one--none of the vendors or service providers are required to do a criminal background check, even if the service is, say, private tutoring.

No protections for student private data. There's no requirement for vendors or scholarship organizations to follow any existing privacy laws when it comes to student personal, health or education records. There's no sign anywhere that scholarship or service providers have to follow federal basics like FERPA or HIPPA, and there are no protections at all for data privacy.

Remember-- JLCAR won't decide whether these features make the rules "bad," but whether or not they are within the agency's authority, whether or not they conflict with other existing laws, whether or not the financial impact statement has fully outlined the costs, and whether or not the rules are clear and universally applied.

If JLCAR says these rules won't fly, the legislature backs up and does some rewriting (which has apparently already been going on). The best hope here is that New Hampshire ends up with a terrible voucher program that is marginally less terrible. The only other hope here is that continued noise about this underhanded giveaway to privatizers awakens more state residents who remember it all up through the next election. These folks have made a swift, sneaky, sloppy attempt to shovel education money away from public schools and toward private operators; here's hoping that someone other than students gets to pay a price.

PA: A Different Tax Credit Approach

 One of the great voucher-promotion dodges is the Tax Credit Scholarship. In this, I give a bunch of money to a "scholarship organization," and they use the money to foot some student bills at the private school of their choice (in some states, "their" means both the parents and the donor). It's a great way to dodge any of those annoying (yet rapidly vanishing) separation of church and state rules.

But what if the tax credit money was used differently. What if it was used to help improve a public school?

In Pennsylvania, Representative Stephen Kinsey (D) from the Philly area, has proposed HB 1778, a bill that would create Educational Improvement Initiative Tax Credits. The basic idea is this:

The program shall provide tax credits to entities that provide contributions to educational improvement organizations. Contributions to the educational improvement organization shall be used to provide grants to school districts with low-achieving schools to improve students' academic performance.

The business can contribute up to $750,000 per year and get 90% of that credited against their taxes. They would contribute to operators on the state-approved list, and those would provide one of several state-approved types of school-fixing techniques:

* Targeted tutoring during the normal day intended to increase the student's test scores on the Big Standardized Test.

* Targeted interventions, including after school and/or summer school programs that could include tutoring, mentoring, and family servicing.

* Community partnerships and wraparound programs for students and families. Could include behavioral support or trauma-informed education.

* Other stuff that the local district might propose and the state board approve.

There's plenty not to love here. "Low-achieving school" is defined strictly by test scores, and one of the listed interventions is just test prep--and test prep during the day, so it will pull the student out of some other class. Noir is it clear what kind of organizations will step up to fill these duties, or why those services couldn't be provided in house by the district.

That said, the bill does get two things right. First, if you're going to let companies get out of paying taxes to the state, why not have them make their contributions to help the state's public services instead of, as with tax credit scholarships, taking the money out of the public coffers and using it to benefit private businesses. Second, using data and "low-achieving" designations to target a school for assistance and not targeting it for destruction, privatization, and charter/private school attack. 

So, the bill is not great, but it at least moves in a better direction than much of what we've seen this year. It was referred to the Education Committee last week, so we'll wait and see what, if anything, becomes of it.