OH: Ten Commandments Time

Next week Ohio's legislature will reportedly hold its first hearing on SB 34, a bill to display "certain historical documents in public schools."

The bill was sponsored by Senator Terry Johnson and co-sponsored by seven other Ohio worthies, and it at least attempts to provide some fig leaves to go with its aim of requiring school boards to post the Ten  Commandments in each classroom. The board "shall select" at least one of the following:

The Mayflower Compact
The Declaration of Independence
The Northwest Ordinance
The mottoes of the United States and Ohio
The Ten Commandments
The Magna Carta
The Bill of Rights
The United States Constitution
The Articles of Confederation

(And before you freak out, the Articles of Confederation are not from 1860, but from 1777--essentially the first attempt at a Constitution).

Again, the choice is required, and in the hands of the local board of education. Will plenty of districts choose one of the secular options? Sure they will. But for those who want to breeze past the First Amendment and do some religion establishment in the classroom, this bill provides cover. 

In fact, the local board can even erect "a monument or other marker" inscribed with one or more of these documents, and put it anywhere on school grounds. 

The district may take contributions of either funding or the actual displays. They tried this in Texas with "In God We Trust" posters, and Patriot Mobile, the Oh So Very Christian mobile phone company donated a bunch of posters. Of course, so did folks who incorporated rainbows and arabic writing, leading a huge dustup over just what sort of trust students were supposed to be tossing toward which gods. The Ohio law includes a clause that if the contributor tries to tell the school how to do their display, the school can turn them down. 

The Ohio display has to include an explanation of the historical importance of the item displayed, otherwise it would be obvious that the school had put up a religious display. This "historical importance" dodge is popular with the religious display-in-school crowd, at least until the Supreme Court finally rules that it would inhibit the free exercise of christianists not to be able to impose their religion on schools.

No word in the bill about which version of the decalogue schools are supposed to use. 

An actual Christian might be a bit put off by the way this bill equates a sacred text with some political documents, as if the founding fathers and the Great I Am are pretty much on equal footing, much like the Louisiana Ten Commandments law suggests putting up posters that equate Moses with Speaker Mike Johnson. 

Will the Ohio legislature show some sense? One never knows. Stay tuned.

AK: No, Alaskan Charters Don't Lead The Nation

Alaska's Mike Dunleavy is one more governor who really wants to cut into his state's public education sector. Lately he's been publishing editorials to boost the idea of expanding the charter sector in Alaska, making claims such as calling Alaska charter schools "the envy of the nation" and claiming they can boast being Number 1. 

The numbers don’t lie: Alaska’s charter schools consistently outperform traditional public schools in academic achievement, parental satisfaction and student engagement.

Except that's not true.  

Dunleavy is basing his claims on this report from Paul Peterson and M. Danish Shakeel in the Journal of School Choice (a real legitimate academic journal and certainly not a clearing house for advocacy masqu3erading as real academic research). Shakeel is a UK professor who has co-published reports with choice luminaries like Robert Maranto, Patrick Wolf, and Corey DeAngelis. Paul Peterson, of the Harvard Kennedy School, has made a career out of producing research that supports charter and voucher programs (Josh Cowen covers him extensively in The Privateers).

We could talk about how the report was commissioned by the Walton Foundation in order to buttress the case for charter schools, and I would love to talk about how it depends on scores from the Big Standardized Test to make its claims. But here's the thing about the Peterson/Shakeel report-- it doesn't even say what Dunleavy says it says.

Public schools do not appear anywhere in the paper, which is strictly a state by state comparison of charter school performance on the NAEP (the "gold standard" of national B S Tests). There are seven tables that rank states; Alaska is first in only two of them. 

In January, Beth Zirbes and Mike Bronson wrote a paper that further debunks Dunleavy's claims. Zirbes has a masters degree in both mathematics and statistics, and teaches high school math and statistics. Bronson holds a doctorate in biology and volunteers with the Anchorage NAACP, and their analysis is simple and clear. "Student achievement" has very little to do with charter vs. public school and everything to do socioeconomic status. And if you like visuals, Zirbes and Bronson drew a picture:

The authors found that charter schools on average "have very different student bodies than neighborhood schools." Charters had proportionately fewer poor students and English language learners. In fact, they found "Alaska charter school student bodies look like private schools in the Lower 48 states more than they resemble charter school students in the Lower 48"-- Alaska charter students are richer and whiter than charter students in the Lower 48. 

In 2019, just 3.5% of neighborhood schools in Alaska had fewer than 20% rates of economically disadvantaged students. Almost half of charter schools had below 20%. Only three of Alaska's twenty-eight charters enroll more than 10% of their student body from the ranks of English language learners. 157 of the state's neighborhood schools were above 10%. 

Zirbes and Bronson also note that the Peterson could not share what actual samples were used for his study. Nor does his study allow for the fact that Alaska's charter population is self-selecting, and no sort of control group was involved. 

Bottom line, once again-- controlling for the characteristics of the students involved, there is no evidence that charter schools do anything better than public schools, other than selecting higher-performing students. 

AI Skeptic Ed Zitron

My advice for folks wrestling with the Artificial Intelligence [sic] marketing blitz for education is to find trusted sources of reality based writing about the topic. Here at the Institute we follow the work of Benjamin Riley and Audrey Watters, both of whom are not only knowledgeable but who also provide lots of leads to other trustworthy sources. I also keep my eyes peeled for gems like Anne Lutz Fernandez's series about AI mania in schools. 

AI skeptics come in many shades and flavors, and if you like your skepticism straight up and seriously resistant to all the magical prophecies, let me suggest Ed Zitron.

Zitron has a podcast called Better Offline and a newsletter. He's a Brit but lives in Vegas. He does PR and tech writing, and you can get a taste of what he's about in a recent Slate interview with Alex Kirschner. 

One of Zitron's key points is that AI simply hasn't produced anything to merit the unending hype.

On top of that, we are years into generative A.I. Where is the horizontal enablement? Where is the thing it’s enabling? Two years. Show me one thing which you use that you go, “Oh, damn, I’m so glad I have this.” Show me the AirPlay; show me the Apple Pay. Show me the thing that you’re like, “Goddamn, I’m glad this is here.”

Or on the need to "find the product:"

Find the actual thing that genuinely changes lives, improves lives, and helps people. Though Uber as a company has horrifying labor practices, you can at least look at them and go, “This is why I’m using the app. This is why this is a potentially world-changing concept.” Same with Google search and cloud computing.

With ChatGPT and their ilk—Anthropic’s Claude, for example—you can find use cases, but it’s hard to point to any of them that are really killer apps. It’s impossible to point to anything that justifies the ruinous financial cost, massive environmental damage, theft from millions of people, and stealing of the entire internet. Also, on a very simple level, what’s cool about this? What is the thing that really matters here?

He cites a great cognitive dissonance, where we are being told to be excited about a thing that doesn't actually do the stuff that is supposed to be so exciting.

We’re being told, “Oh, this automation’s gonna change our lives.” Our lives aren’t really being changed, other than our power grids being strained, our things being stolen, and some jobs being replaced. Freelancers, especially artists and content creators, are seeing their things replaced with a much, much shittier version. But nevertheless, they’re seeing how some businesses have contempt for creatives.

“Why is this thing the future? And if it isn’t the future, why am I being told that it is?” That question is applicable to blue-collar workers, to hedge fund managers, to members of the government, to everyone, because this is one of the strangest things to happen in business history.

These claims are exceptionally familiar to educators, who are being told relentlessly that AI is going to transform education. The advantage teachers have over the general public is that we have been told that some piece of technology is going to transform education roughly a gazillion times. Unfortunately, some teachers work in districts where the administration falls for that line every single time. Every. Single. Time.

But in education, the claim that This Is The Future will always get some folks worked up, because isn't education always supposed to have one foot in the future? 

Zitron also blames late stage corporate striving. Steve Jobs once talked in an interview about how a company can only gather so much of the market and only improve its products so far, and at that point the product people are pushed out, and the bean counters take over. Zitron echoes that, and offers Zoom as an example

Zoom is a company that grew based on the fact that, “Hey, I want to easily talk to someone on video and audio.” Now they’re adding A.I. bullshit because they don’t know what else to do because they have to grow forever. That’s where they all are.

These aren’t companies run by people that build products. These aren’t companies that win markets by making a better thing than the competition. These people are monopolists. They’re management consultants.

I've long argued that education is where private sector consulting ideas go to die ("Management By Objectives is tapped out for corporations--maybe we could come up with a version for schools). It may well be the same for technology that sees education not as a set of needs to be met, but as an untapped market with money to be hoovered up. Which just gets us to the position that teachers know all too well: here's a piece of tech that someone in administration thought would be cool--now go figure out how to change the way you teach so that you can use this tech, somehow.

Zitron may have less faith in AI than just about anyone out there, so you may find him a little dark for your tastes, but he does a fine job articulating some of what's bothering you about AI that you can't quite put into words. And while he doesn't address education directly, much of what he has to say will strike a familiar chord.

What Do Microschools Look Like These Days

Microschools are a small but important piece of the privatization argument. And some reporting shows just how unaccountable for educating they are.

A microschool is a simple thing. All you need is a handful of students, probably a computer, and some adult. Doesn't have to be a teacher--the teacher's in the software--but just some "coach" to keep things organized and on track. It's a super-modern iteration of a on e-room schoolhouse. It's a homeschooling co-op. It's also a version of the distance learning that so many people hated during the pandemess, but you won't hear that mentioned often. The Microschools Network website defines it this way:

An intentionally 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

Microschools are a big business, particularly if, like industry giant Prenda, you can get an entire state to give you a contract. The Koch-topus loves micro-schools. Reformster Travis Pillow wrote a legitimately strong response to one of my microschool pieces. Betsy DeVos says nice things about them. 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.

Why the microschool love? Because they help plug a big hole in the privatization argument. Are you opposed to taxpayer-funded school vouchers because there are no private schools in your neighborhood that will accept you child (or just none at all)? Never fear, comes the argument-- you can have a microschool! Anybody can have a microschool! So taxpayer-funded school vouchers really do serve everyone, even if it seems as if they actually don't.

But who are they serving, and how well are they serving them?

Nobody is collecting a ton of data about microschools, but in April of 2024, Don Soifer and Ashley Soifer, CEO and Chief Innovation Officer of the National Microschooling Center did a little sector analysis that sheds a little light. They looked at 400 microschools in 41 states. That's a small sample size-- Dan Soifer told The Hill that he figures there are about 95,000 microschools serving 1.5 million children. Still, the report does paint a bit of a picture.

One third of microschool founders are currently licensed educators, one third are formerly licensed educators, and one third are neither. About half are starting their first business. 85% of the schools are serving 5-11 year olds, 66% 12-14 year olds, and 37% older teens. Only 40% of students came from public school; 33% were home schooled, and 14% were from private or charter schools. 

18% were serving 51 or more students, which strains the definition of a microschool considerably. 55% are set up as a center serving home schooled students, and 37% as a licensed non-public school; these designations have a lot to do with state regulations. Only 16% are state accredited. 32% get state school choice funds, with 63% tuition-based funding. Families self-report as 60% above or at the average income for their area.

41% operate in commercial business space, 25% in a church, and 20% in a residence. 

60% use a self-directed approach, and 60% use project based. 52% use Social-Emotional Learning. 27% are religion based. 54% use self-created curriculum, and 50% use online learning tools.

There's a lot of room for less-than-stellar schooling in this model. Like most private schools, microschools generally don't answer to the state for issues of discrimination. There are, as with most taxpayer-funded school voucher programs, plenty of state funding going to people who don't particularly need it. And states like Florida allow microschools to skip health and safety regulations imposed on schools.

The Soifer's report covers many details, but not a central question-- are the students learning anything? Many microschools make a big deal out of the centrality of the computer in the model-- "education for the 21sr Century!"

Microschools were having a big moment last year, but more recently things have been quiet in that sector. The 74 just ran a piece about how microschools can empower education-flavored entrepreneurial spirit, and the Center for American Progress, a left-tilted outfit that generally loves reformy stuff, just put out a piece warning that microschools need some regulation. They aren't wrong; microschools exist in their own little pocket universe where pretty much anyone can teach pretty much anything in pretty much any way they want (your mileage may vary depending on the state). And while the current administration fast tracks the dream of getting government out of schooling and making every child's education a family DIY project, microschools will have support, whether they deserve it or not. 

Is Classroom Management A Skill?

A new study from three actual academics and one TNTP analytics director who's also at Annenberg Institute, looks at what sort of factors influence the early career development for teachers. It's behind a paywall (because academics are sad that teachers in the field don't pay more attention to academic research, but not sad enough to come up with a way to make that research accessible, but that's okay, I'm not bitter or anything), but Sarah Sparks took a look at it for EdWeek.

The study looked at 25,000 novice teachers in Tennessee (which makes me wonder about the definition of "novice," because Tennessee has around 70,000 K-12 teachers total). 

Sparks tells us that the study finds that the major factor that predicts "a new teacher’s effectiveness and likelihood to stay in the classroom is how quickly they learn to manage class, including student behavior." They based this conclusion on principal observation and the less-than-useful VAM scores. 

What I found interesting about the discussion is the notion that classroom management is a "skill" that is part of "foundational teaching skills." Can you learn all about it in a classroom management class?

I'll argue that classroom management skills, like many reading skills and critical thinking skills, is a how and not a what. To work on critical thinking skills, you have to think about something. And to work on classroom management, you have to be managing classroom teaching.

Consider, for example, a teacher who declares that the students in the class must be quiet and orderly before she will start teaching anything. The result is a class period in which nothing happens for the first several minutes. Worse, she ends up in this fruitless dialog:

Teacher: Be quiet. Stop talking. Sit still, and focus your attention on me.

Student: Why? You aren't doing anything except yelling at us.

The teacher in this scenario doesn't really have anywhere to go next except "Because I said so, and your will must be subordinate to mine." Lord knows there are plenty of teachers who take this approach; they are the same ones that talk about needing to break students' spirits so that the teacher can do her job. It assumes that the classroom can't really function--can't become an actual classroom--until students are managed. This is not classroom management, but school-based authoritarianism, student management and subjugation.

Setting aside for the moment any moral or ethical objections to this approach, it just doesn't work very well. It takes a huge amount of energy and effort before you even start the actual teaching. The students that you do bend to your will then become floppy learners who have to be led everywhere, and those that you do not bend to your will become opponents.

None of which is meant to suggest that the teachers should simply take her hands off the wheels and let students to do whatever. A functional classroom needs an adult who is in charge, 

The most basic rule of classroom management is that if you want to demand your students' attention, you must requisition it for some purpose. "Pay attention" requires a target, a thing you want them to pay attention to. 

Also, engagement is not education, but it helps make education possible. Engagement is not a sign of learning, but it is a sign that the classroom management piece is working. Still, it has to be connected to the teaching part to be any use. 

There are several elements here, and it's these elements that can help the newbie.

Know your stuff. Classroom management comes more easily when the teacher clearly knows what she's talking about. That doesn't mean acting like the Unquestionable God Of All Knowledge (which actually projects the opposite), but it does mean being the expert on the content. It also means moving through the lesson like you have a clear purpose and direction.

Embrace your authority. Starting out, it feels uncomfortable top inhabit the role of the Adult In Charge. But that's part of the gig. Even if your goal is a more democratic, egalitarian classroom, you still have to embrace the role of the grownup. You may want to share authority over the class direction and choices, but you cannot share what you do not possess. 

Empathy and consequences. There is an ongoing debate about understanding acting out as communication or as misbehavior that needs to be addressed. It is a dumb argument. Of course acting out is communication, but that does not mean it doesn't have to have consequences. Empathy is important and necessary; so is protecting the safety and learning of all the other students in the classroom. 

Don't stop teaching. This is a hard trick to master, like both watching the road and checking your mirrors the first time you drive. But if you stop class to deal with management issues, you will never be done dealing with management issues. "We're not going to continue until you get quiet" just invites students to say "You've got a deal!" 

Some critical elements are beyond the newbie's control. If the front office is useless as back-up for the classroom teacher, all the classroom management "skills" in the world won't help here. The building administration should be providing support and assistance (and "Have you tried  building a relationship with the student" and "We won't do anything until you've called the parents five times" are neither help nor assistance). New teachers should be actively mentored, and not simply abandoned to figure things out. 

There will be students who are especially resistant to being managed. Think of it this way--every terrible adult in the world was once a student in someone's classroom. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the number of difficult students has increased post-pandemic. 

Add to that an atmosphere of increased hostility to public education, fed by the Trump administration, and you have a stew of factors that a new teacher cannot be expecte3d to navigate without some seasoned mentoring and administrative support.

Could college programs do more? Perhaps, but classroom management cannot be taught or learned in a vacuum any more than making inferences can be taught separate from reading. And like reading skills, classroom management skills will be developed in a very specific context (in this case, the particular students and content). That means that a new teacher doesn't really start to grasp classroom management until she is in a classroom trying to teach. I had many, many student teachers over the years, and only one was a natural--all the rest had to learn as they went. Expecting a newbie to command a class is unrealistic, but preparing them to be experts in their content, to know about dealing with students of that age, and to be mentored and supported as they get started will be far more useful than making them take study classroom management skills. 

OK: Walters Continues To Oppose First Amendment

Ryan Walters wants more money from Oklahoma taxpayers. Specifically, he wants a few million dollars to continue his program of forcing the Bible into Oklahoma classrooms-- another three million to match the three million he got last fall.

His discussion with lawmakers in the state illuminate some of the thinking here.

Rep. Jacob Rosencrans, a Democrat who was formerly a history teacher, asked why the taxpayers should foot the bill for a document readily available for free in digital form.

Responded Walters, "When you're talking about the foundational texts of American history, and frankly Western civilization, they should be physically present in the classroom.” It's not clear what special properties the physical form has, other than Walters wanting students to see that Bible every day. 

Also-- since when is the Bible a foundational text of Western Civilization? You know--the "civilization" that has its roots in ancient Greek and Roman civilization, civilizations that were both before the lifetime of Jesus and also not particularly interested in what the Jewish people had to say. Nor does he seem particularly interested in looking at other roots of the US, like the influence of the Iriquois Confederacy and other native American groups on the formation of the US Constitution. 

Rep, Cynthia Roe, a Republican who is a business owner and nurse, asked Walters if this might be opening "the door for the Quran, opening the door for Wicca, atheists, other religions outside of Christianity."

Walters explains that other religions don't count.

Our nation has a unique history. It is very influenced by Judeo-Christian values. You'll see those references in the standards we're recommending for approval. We do not see the influence from those other religions in the same context.

This is the slightly watered-down version of the Christian Nationalist argument that we are a Christian Nation. It's bunk, but it's bunk you can expect to hear, a suggestion that somehow the authors of the First Amendment who wrote that the government shouldn't endorse any particular religion really meant to say that Christianity (or at least certain select versions of it) are supposed to enjoy a special status above all other religions practiced by citizens.

It's a reminder that when Walters calls the wall between church and state a "radical myth," what he really means by "religion" is "my version of Christianity." He has no interest in freeing Other People's Religions or doing things like recognizing them in K-12 classrooms. 

He wants the government to enforce and support a special status for select religions, which is a terrible idea for everyone, including and especially people of faith, who would soon find themselves having to jockey for official government support for their particular faith. Walters is making the classic mistake of imagining that this power would be good because he has failed to imagine circumstances in which the power could be wielded by people other than himself. 

The framers had experience that allowed them to have much better imaginations than Walters, and they knew better than to pursue the Walters path of establishing a state-favored, state-promoted, state-supported religion. 

But it's key to understanding the christianist wing of MAGA-- as Katherine Stewart explains in The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism:

It [Christian nationalism] asserts that legitimate government rests not on the consent of the governed but adherence to the doctrines of a specific religious, ethnic, and cultural heritage.

So if you wonder why guys like Walters seem to be anti-democracy and even anti-Constitution, it's because they only recognize the legitimacy and authority of decisions that match their own God-given code of what is Right. $3 million for classroom Bibles may seem like piddly stuff these days, but it's one more example of the larger battle that's going on all over the country.

ICYMI: Groundhog Day Edition (2/2)

Years ago, I went to Punxsutawney for a workshop of some sort. Stayed in the historic (aka "old") hotel across the square from the library where, at the time, Phil enjoyed some luxurious quarters in the basement. It's very much a small Pennsylvania town (the movie was shot mostly in Illinois). I also remember Groundhog Day as the day Sam Harrison, my geology professor and the trumpet player in our faculty-student college jazz band, would send out his version of a Christmas card. He passed away last year. Happy Groundhog Day to you, Sam. 

Let's look at the reading for the week.

In Edtech, You Either Bet On Teachers Or You Have To Build One

A very excellent, clear-eyed view of one of the central problems of AI ed tech. Somebody-- or something--has to do the teacher job, which, spoiler alert, is a lot more than saying "Here's some practice for this fact. Learn it." Dan Meyer blogs.

Playing Defense

Jennifer Berkshire blogs about Pete Hegseth's plans for the Department of Defense schools, the most successful schools that we have. But their secret sauce is wokeness, so here comes the hammer.

Be Prepared for MisNAEPery

Sue Kingery Woltanski went to a summit thrown by one of the outfits trying to establish itself as a far right school boards association, and she learned many things about upcoming talking points. Less "woke." More of that old standard "Our schools are failing!"

The president’s education order: Trump wants to indoctrinate, too

Jonathan Zimmerman at The Hill points out the obvious-- indoctrination is okay, even required, if it's for Dear Leader's preferred values.

Trump should stay out of what students learn in school

Checker Finn, honcho emeritus of the Fordham Institution, is plenty conservative, but he's conservative enough to remember that the law says DC can't tell districts what to teach.

Trump’s Education Agenda Is a Big Vulnerability

Jennifer Berkshire in Jacobin, pointing out that if there were a party willing and able to oppose Trump and the GOP, education would be a great issue on which to attack them.

In the Wild West of School Voucher Expansions, States Rely on Untested Companies, With Mixed Results

School voucher programs require an organization to handle all the money, and as Alec MacGillis reports for ProPublica, when it comes to finding a company that really knows what it's doing, the pickings are slim.

FCMAT Attacks Weed Elementary

Thomas Ultican takes a look at California's special fiscal crisis team and shows how it really operates. One more example of how takeover models fail.

The Folly of Settled Science

Nancy Flanagan experiences the inevitable NAEP-related flare up of reading wars. 

And Five Hours Later, I Might Have One Single Lesson Plan…

Eduhonesty with an excellent example of how a lesson plan protocol can result in a terrible process.

Did OK’s controversial education chief introduce PragerU to SC schools?

Did Ryan Walters help the faux educators of Prager get into South Carolina? Steve Nuzum considers the question.

Resisting AI Mania in Schools - Part I

Anne Lutz Fernandez is cataloging the top AI sales pitch points, and providing explanations of how to push back. Part II is here. 

Sal Khan and AI Reimagined Schools: Questions and Concerns

Nancy Bailey looks at Sal Khan's attempt to algorithm his way to educating students.

 
How One Professor Deals with Student GPT-Generated Essays

Larry Cuban shares some very practical techniques from one college professor who deals with student AI use. Applicable in high school, I'd say.

Burn! (as That 70s Show Used to Say)

Gregory Sampson on what parents really care about

DeepIrony

Ben Riley looks at the unveiling of Chinese AI. Some good insights and warnings (and this was even before it turned out that the Chinese model was built on the back of OpenAI'a work-- double irony that every creative whose work was stolen to train OpenAI's product was quick to point out).

The Invisible Hand: How Dark Money Is Inventing Prestige for Right-Wing Academics

From the blog Important Context, a report on an "Academy" that exists just to make right wing bunk look like it has academic cred.

The Baby Bump

Well, now, A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that the baby bust is over (and Covid may be one reason). 

Some Notes About Joy Amid The Tyranny

Jose Luis Vilson just had a birthday, and in reflecting on that, he offers some thoughts about how to move forward through the years ahead.

This week at the Bucks County Beacon, I talked about another report showing Pennsylvania's big cyber school and its creative use of taxpayer dollars.  

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