Why Does Everyone Think They Can Lie To Educators about "Disruptive Innovation?"

Jason Tomassini:

In the case of "disruption," both Horn and Christensen, who is profiled in an excellent recent New Yorker article, point out there is a specific definition: technology that offers an affordable, efficient alternative to an expensive, unwieldy one. There is legitimate debate over whether something like digital textbooks is disruptive; the same isn't true of your average charter school.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Let's just look at the excellent New Yorker article:

In industry after industry, Christensen discovered, the new technologies that had brought the big, established companies to their knees weren’t better or more advanced—they were actually worse. The new products were low-end, dumb, shoddy, and in almost every way inferior. But the new products were usually cheaper and easier to use, and so people or companies who were not rich or sophisticated enough for the old ones started buying the new ones, and there were so many more of the regular people than there were of the rich, sophisticated people that the companies making the new products prospered. Christensen called these low-end products “disruptive technologies,” because, rather than sustaining technological progress toward better performance, they disrupted it.

See the difference? You can, I might add, make a good case that the Khan Academy does fit the second definition vis a vis traditional educational publishing or teaching (but not education as a consumer product).

I Guess We're Getting Somewhere When "Bare Bones" Means Everyone Gets a Computer

Fordham:

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English language arts and mathematics represent a sea change in standards-based reform and their implementation is the movement’s next—and greatest—challenge. Yet, while most states have now set forth implementation plans, these tomes seldom address the crucial matter of cost. Putting a Price Tag on the Common Core: How Much Will Smart Implementation Cost? estimates the implementation cost for each of the forty-five states (and the District of Columbia) that have adopted the Common Core State Standards and shows that costs naturally depend on how states approach implementation. Authors Patrick J. Murphy of the University of San Francisco and Elliot Regenstein of EducationCounsel LLC illustrate this with three models:

• Business as Usual. This “traditional” (and priciest) approach to standards-implementation involves buying hard-copy textbooks, administering annual student assessments on paper, and delivering in-person professional development to all teachers.


• Bare Bones. This lowest-cost alternative employs open-source instructional materials, annual computer-administered assessments, and online professional development via webinars and modules.


• Balanced Implementation. This is a blend of approaches, some of them apt to be effective as well as relatively cost-efficient.

If you assume "access to technology for all students and their teachers," then you can provide new instructional materials for just $20 a year!

If.

RI's Loss is Iceland's Gain

If Schools Were More Like Games

The Mittani:

It is undeniable: games as a whole are getting easier each year, with more handholding, simpler control schemes, extended tutorials, and a relentless drive to seize the money of even the most drooling incompetent. Simultaneously, games are getting more immersive and addictive, with the psychological feedback loops first seen in MUDs exploding into the MMO industry with Everquest and then being refined into their most destructive forms by both Blizzard and Zynga.  What does a hobby with ever-increasing levels of addiction, ease, and immersion for its users create? A sense of entitlement - an entitlement that is a threat to every ‘hard’ game out there, but especially to EVE Online.

Just for Reference

Peter Edelman:

The median job in this country pays now about $34,000 a year, if you have it full time and you have it all year. That’s half the jobs in the U.S. that pay less than $34,000. A quarter of the jobs pay less than the poverty line for a family of four, $22,000 a year.

Reduced lunch eligibility, household of 3: $34,281; household of 4: $41,438.

Free lunch eligibility, household of 3: $24,089; household of 4: $29,055.

Just Don't Call it a "Learning Style"

Mark Guzdial:

This is from a longitudinal study, testing students’ visual ability, then tracking what fields they go into later. Having significant visual ability most strongly predicts an Engineering career, but in second place (and really close) is “Mathematics and Computer Science.” That score at the bottom is worth noting: Having significant visual ability is negatively correlated with going into Education. Nora points out that this is a significant problem. Visual skills are not fixed. Training in visual skills improves those skills, and the effect is durable and transferable. But, the researchers at SILC found that teachers with low visual skills had more anxiety about teaching visual skills, and those teachers depressed the impact on their students.

"Learning styles" is probably the wrong model for a real phenomenon.

Who Wrote What in the Common Core ELA Standards?

I remain a bit dubious about David Coleman's actual role in the creation of the Common Core ELA standards. In particular, I'm wondering if he actually just worked on the supporting narrative and commentary but not so much on the enumerated standards themselves. Kind of like a cookbook ghost writer who is responsible for everything except the recipes.

There is, as I've pointed out various times, a lot of inconsistency between the two, particularly where the commentary claims that things are required by the standards themselves that are actually entirely outside the scope of standards in general.

In his barnstorming tour, Coleman doesn't seem particularly interested in the actual standards. They don't sound like his voice. I don't even think he is interested in the role of standards in contemporary American schools. I don't think he likes standards.

I can assure you that if I was the lead author of the new national ELA standards, I'd be going around telling you how much I like my favorite standards and why you should too. You don't hear that from Coleman. (Later: I suppose he does like to talk about the standards requiring analysis of "seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century foundational U.S. documents of historical and literary significance", but that one is so poorly grafted into the overall structure that I think it only reinforces my point.)

This is ok, I suppose, since maybe he didn't write them anyhow and maybe he's really working on a totally different agenda.

In the meantime, nobody in particular is promoting the standards themselves. It is all about curriculum and assessment. It isn't clear who would rise to defend the standards themselves.

The harder you look at this situation, the more it looks like either a very complicated double-bank shot conspiracy, or just a bunch of independent actors who are not as well coordinated as they'd like to think. I tend to think -- in this specific case -- it is the latter.

A Bit Purple and Swollen, but Intact

There Can Be No Stability for the PPSD Under SIG

Elisabeth Harrison:

“People say if it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger, and I think they have come out of this stronger,” Duncan continued. “Great new superintendent, great union leader, strong board, and I’m very hopeful that Providence with some stability can significantly improve student achievement.”

We can't do 3, 4, 5 or more turnarounds a year forever. Did anyone try to explain that?

Also, "strong board?" They can't even show up!

Didn't Just Hurt Rhode Island

Scott Jennings:

Loyalty matters, but character also matters. And in this case, Schillings failure of character has damaged an industry, to the point where it may be years before we see another investment in MMOs. I am loathe to link to anything said by the possibly sentient Michael Pachter, but even a stopped watch is right twice a day. The MMO industry in general is in deep trouble this year, and Schilling this month pile-drived it even further into the concrete.

I have nothing but sympathy for the now-unemployed former employees of Schilling at 38, and I know from my own time working in the trenches that many of them will violently object to much of what I have said here. But I think the direction that our industry is going – the incredible amount of money wasted by EA on what was essentially a roll of the dice that came up 2 and 3, and the even more incredible display of massive hubris and utter incompetence on the part of Schilling and his management team, is killing the very concept of massively multiplayer gaming.

Read the whole thing, Rhode Islanders.

38 Studios outperformed my expectations by releasing a single game that not only ran, but was reportedly at least somewhat interesting.

Also, EVE Online may outlast the rest of the industry if this keeps up.

Good Question. I'll go with "No."

Mark Guzdial:

Is it a good strategy to get positive learning effects by telling students something that may not be true?

It is Worth Reading this a Second Time

Deborah Meier:

We have three very serious flaws to deal with. One is that the skill involved in doing well on reading and math tests do not constitute something worthy of the name "academic achievement." Such a claim dumbs down "academia" in ways that do serious damage. And the second is that even simple-minded questions of "can she or can't she read, and how well" can't be answered "psychometrically." The third strike is that belief in them takes time away from using our schools to develop intellectually honest habits of mind, genuine respect for evidence, the capacity to take apart or defend a good argument, etc., in a variety of domains (including math and literature).

All of the various approaches to reading instruction -- and education -- are increasingly distored by these flaws, and it gets harder and harder to remember how to think outside this context.

I Hope This Includes Board Meeting Attendance Rates

Alyson Klein:

What's more, also by the 2014-15 school year, districts (applying for the next round of Race to the Top) will have to promise to implement evaluation systems that take student outcomes into account--not just for teacher and principal performance, but for district superintendents and school boards. That's a big departure from the state-level Race to the Top competitions, which just looked at educators who actually work in schools, not district-level leaders.

Stupid or Evil? Take 254

John Thompson:

Eli Broad's Education Week Commentary "Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste" proves the dictum that a journal of record should never deny a billionaire the soap box he craves, even if he offers little of substance. Especially when a corporate leader is just pontificating, always let him speak. Broad's "do what I say, not what I do" approach to school reform offers an invaluable glimpse into what he thinks the "billionaires boys club" is doing for schools. It also shows that Broad has no clue about what it is actually doing to schools.

Based on "one difficult year" teaching in a university a half of a century ago, Broad says that schools should "never shy from an unreasonable goal." Broad tells educators to "use crises as chances to rethink everything, question your assumptions, and start afresh." For instance, Broad complains that diverse children with varied learning styles should not be expected to "learn the same lesson taught in the same way."

So, Mr. Broad, why were poor children in Philadelphia and my home of Oklahoma City subjected to a rushed, top down, paced curriculum, where everyone "learn(s) the same lesson taught in the same way?" Our "everyone must be on the same page" instruction was imposed by a graduate of the Broad Superintendent's Academy. Where did our superintendent, who had no background in urban education, get such a strange idea? His mentor, Arlene Ackerman, was superintendent of the Broad Academy. She then imposed the same command and control model on neighborhood schools in Philadelphia.

Or both, of course.

Mitt Romney Calls for Direct Action to Stop School Closures

Mitt Romney:

We have good teachers, like the ones who are leading New York City’s Democracy Prep. Because of them, kids from the city’s poorest community are outperforming children from the wealthiest. Last summer, these teachers took over the worst elementary school in Harlem rather than let it shut down. Democracy Prep is a testament to good people who refuse to give up on our kids or leave our cities without a fight.

Everything is Connected

Amanda Marcotte:

The answer throughout is always, always that it's a systemic problem and not the fault of individuals. The filmmakers and the experts they consult are extremely invested in making it clear that they don't hold individuals making "bad" choices accountable for this. Repeatedly, for instance, they point out that a person's BMI is surprisingly predictable based on nothing more than a zip code, which I thought was a nice, clear-cut way to get the audience out of the "personal responsibility" framework of utter meaninglessness, and move them towards the "collective responsibility" framework that actually suggests solutions. From there, we're treated to two episodes where food marketers, agriculture subsidies, conservative politicians, increasing work loads, and underfunded schools and communities are targeted as the cause of the problem. I was particularly interested in the emphasis on how overworked Americans are, which is an aspect that a lot of other writers on this issue don't look at. One in four Americans doesn't get any physical activity at all, and the reason pegged in this documentary is their jobs---between commuting to and from work and sitting at a desk all day, people just don't have time. Turns out that stress is a major factor in developing obesity, because being stressed out tends to override a lot of brain functions that prevent overeating. One expert talks witheringly of how stupid the concept of "free will" really is, and how it's a distraction from the real issues, which are that our society pressures you at every turn to eat more and exercise less.

Positive feedback loops are bad.

Recent Links on Integration

Andrew Rotherham:

I’m all for (integration), but, to put it plainly, it’s as likely to snow Hershey’s Kisses as for this to happen at scale given politics, housing patterns, city and town boundaries, and school boundaries. So doesn’t this make those pursuing other strategies to improve school quality for low-income and minority kids, you know, pragmatists?  Even within jurisdictions with great racial and economic diversity (and liberal voting records) there is a lot of resistance to just changing school boundaries and enrollment patterns. Meanwhile, many schools that are integrated on paper are much less so within classrooms.

John Thompson:

Political scientist, Patrick McGuinn, in a sympathetic article in Education Next, helps explain the belligerent culture of the contemporary "reform movement. McGuinn reports that education reform advocacy organizations (ERAOs) meet every few weeks in Washington D.C. to discuss their fight with teachers and their unions, which they dismiss as the "blob." The ERAOs refer to themselves, only half in jest, as the "Fight Club." In other words, they are so convinced of the righteousness of their cause that they embrace "brass knuckle" edu-politics, as they demonize their opponents.

So basically, for all the posturing and "civil rights issue of our time" rhetoric the "Fight Club" is fond of picking on the easier, "pragmatic" target -- working teachers and poor people.

Maybe the best model for understanding school reform is real estate politics -- urban renewal, gentrification, etc. Or maybe it is just a component of those processes. This is not a coincidence.

The late Bob Fitch in 2008(via Doug Henwood):

If we examine more carefully the interests that Obama represents; if we look at his core financial supporters; as well as his inmost circle of advisors, we’ll see that they represent the primary activists in the demolition movement and the primary real estate beneficiaries of this transformation of public housing projects into condos and townhouses: the profitable creep of the Central Business District and elite residential neighborhoods southward; and the shifting of the pile of human misery about three miles further into the South Side and the south suburbs.

Obama’s political base comes primarily from Chicago FIRE—the finance, insurance and real estate industry. And the wealthiest families—the Pritzkers, the Crowns and the Levins. But it’s more than just Chicago FIRE. Also within Obama’s inner core of support are allies from the non-profit sector: the liberal foundations, the elite universities, the non- profit community developers and the real estate reverends who produce market rate housing with tax breaks from the city and who have been known to shout from the pulpit “give us this day our Daley, Richard Daley bread.”

Aggregate them and what emerges is a constellation of interests around Obama that I call “Friendly FIRE.” Fire power disguised by the camouflage of community uplift; augmented by the authority of academia; greased by billions in foundation grants; and wired to conventional FIRE by the terms of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1995. And yet friendly FIRE is just as deadly as the conventional FIRE that comes from bankers and developers that we’re used to ducking from. It’s the whole condominium of interests whose advancement depends on the elimination of poor blacks from the community and their replacement by white people and—at least temporarily—by the black middle class—who’ve gotten subprime mortgages—in a kind of redlining in reverse. This “friendly FIRE” analysis stands in opposition to the two main themes of the McCain attack ads. Either they try to frighten people into believing that Obama is a dangerous leftist who hangs with Bill Ayers the former Weatherperson; or they assert he’s a creature of the corrupt Chicago machine.

There are a few slivers of meat floating in this beggar’s broth of charges. Yes, Obama worked with Ayers, but not the Ayers who blew up buildings; but the Ayers who was able to bring down $50 million from the Walter Annenberg foundation, leveraging it to create a $120 million a non-profit organization with Obama as its head. Annenberg was a billionaire friend of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Why would he give mega- millions to a terrorist? Perhaps because he liked Ayers’ new politics. Ayer’s initiative grew out of the backlash against the 1985 Chicago teachers’ strike; his plan promoted “the community” as a third force in education politics between the union and the city administration. Friendly FIRE wants the same kind of education reform as FIRE: the forces that brought about welfare reform have now moved onto education reform and for the same reason: crippling the power of the union will reduce teachers’ salaries, which will cut real estate taxes which will raise land values.

I'd note that I don't know if that is fair to Ayers (probably not), but it certainly reflects the "parent trigger" strategy being pushed now.

I'll give The Jose Vilson the last word:

...integration isn’t just a school of education, but a school of thought, a belief system in which we need to invest. If we don’t believe children of color can have an education that gives them as many options as the next child, then we ought to rip up the one little lesson plan on Martin Luther King Jr. for Black History Month and toss it in the recycle bin. We as a country have to care enough to integrate our schools, and thus, our collective consciousness.

There are many seemingly impossible fights to chose from once you decide you want to improve education. What defines you is which one you pick.

If You Don't Pay the Management Fee They Demand, They Do Leave Without a Fight

Mitt Romney:

We have good teachers, like the ones who are leading New York City’s Democracy Prep. Because of them, kids from the city’s poorest community are outperforming children from the wealthiest. Last summer, these teachers took over the worst elementary school in Harlem rather than let it shut down. Democracy Prep is a testament to good people who refuse to give up on our kids or leave our cities without a fight.

If You've Got a Boss and You're Working for Wages, You're a Member of the Working Class, and You'd Better Be Proud of It

via Modern School.

That's Equivalent to Having 25 1 SD Higher VA Teachers (according to Chetty, Friedman and Rockoff)

David Kirp:

Not only were they more successful in school, they were more successful in life as well. A 2011 study by the Berkeley public policy professor Rucker C. Johnson concludes that black youths who spent five years in desegregated schools have earned 25 percent more than those who never had that opportunity. Now in their 30s and 40s, they’re also healthier — the equivalent of being seven years younger.

Or maybe it is exactly the same thing.

Action Research on the Tools of Ignorance

Like most people who have spent time studying and playing 19th century base ball, I have some clear opinions about how the position of catcher was played in the period. I try not to be too emphatic about sharing them with our catchers, though, because it is a tough assignment to get through at all, let alone with a coddled left fielder nit picking your form. Also, the Grays for many years enjoyed the services of Gil Faria behind the plate, acknowledged by all who had the pleasure of seeing him to be the greatest 19th century catcher since the 19th century.

However, Gil is now semi-retired, and we've been limping along with Charlie Dryer, his bad knee, and his hernia behind the plate. Charlie's sense of self-preservation is not well developed. However, he had a finger bent all the way back last game, and finally seems discouraged by ongoing pain in his hand.

With no serious intent, I donned the catcher's mask and gloves (full fingered heavy but unpadded glove in the left hand, fingerless in right) and got behind the plate to play a role in some baserunning drills at practice Sunday morning. Much to my surprise I felt quite comfortable. Thanks to my new skateboarding muscles I could settle into the correct stooped half-crouch used in the period (as pictured above), and since I actually used the correct two-handed catching technique, it wasn't unduly painful.

Johnny Ward quoted in Catcher by Peter Morris:

Some players catch with their fingers pointing toward the ball, but such men are continually being hurt. A slight foul-tip diverts the ball just enough to carry it against the end of the fingers, and on account of their position the necessary result is a break and dislocation. but with the hands held [properly] there is a 'give' to the fingers and the chances of injury are much reduced. For a low ball the hands should be held so that the fingers point downward, and for a waist ball, by crouching slightly it may be taken in the same manner as a high ball.

This is the technique it is difficult to get modern "vintage" catchers to embrace, and they subsequently tend to get hurt. On Saturday, at Moses Brown (double header starting at 11:00), I'm going to see if I can pull it off with the correct form.

This is the baseball equivalent of running with the bulls. Well, our likely starting pitcher is pushing 50, so it might be more accurate to say it is like running with a somewhat old and slow selection of bulls. Nonetheless, the only thing you can do in baseball more dangerous than mid-1880's (pre-mitt) catching of overhand pitching from 50 feet is mid-1870's catching with hard submarine pitching, fingerless gloves and no mask. As far as I know that has never really been seriously attempted by contemporary teams.

I may also have to model my throwing on a contemporary account of author Steven Crane's technique circa 1890 (from Morris):

He would not stand on his two feet and snap the ball down to the base. It was necessary for him to throw off his mask, cap and protector, give a hop and a skip an throw with a complete body swing. The strain upon the ligaments of his shoulder would, at times, cause him to double up with pain.

So... we'll see how it goes. I may last an inning or the whole game. Hopefully someone will get some video.

Photo from 19cbaseball.com.