Online Education in America

The first thing I want to say to the authors of the new National Ed Tech Plan (pdf) is this: DON’T TEASE ME.

Please.

I’m trying not to get overly optimistic here, but suffice to say, if the rhetoric is any indication of the direction, we may have actually turned a corner.

• Personalized learning
• Learning that is “lifelong and life-wide and available on demand.”
• A device and ubiquitous access for every student and teacher.
• Professional development that focuses on “connected teaching” in “online learning communities” (Sounds familiar.)
• Professional learning that is “collaborative, coherent, and continuous.”
• Learning that is “always on”
• Learning that is no longer “one size fits all.”
• Student work on the cloud
• Student managed electronic learning portfolios
• Students as “networked learners”
• Broadband everywhere
• Open educational resources
• Creative Commons licenses
• Changes to CIPA and FERPA to open up access
• Rethinking the “basic assumptions” of schooling

And more.

Sure, there’s some stuff not to like, and a lot of vagueness as to how we get there, but I’m giving this an A-. Read it.

But here’s the thing…anyone else see a big disconnect between this vision and RTTT? Are these folks really in the same administration?

The words make me optimistic. The deeds so far? Not so much.

So, what do we do about that?

Source: Will Richardson

When choosing which schools to close, city officials say they pick the worst of the worst. But new graduation data released today shows that the city doesn’t always follow its own criteria.

Earlier this year, Department of Education officials announced their intention to close 19 schools based on the schools’ abysmal graduation rates and low test scores. Many of the schools on the list were high schools where less than half of all students graduated and progress reports were dotted with Cs and Ds. But absent from that list was Washington Irving High School, which has the city’s lowest graduation rate among traditional high schools and the highest drop-out rate.

In January, the Panel for Education Policy voted to begin closing a school 16 blocks north of Irving: Norman Thomas High School. Washington Irving was spared. But a look at the school’s graduation numbers and progress reports shows that in some respects, Irving is performing more poorly than Thomas is.

Washington Irving once was one of the city’s behemoth schools: a grand building in the middle of Gramercy filled with students from Harlem and the Bronx. Like Norman Thomas, it serves a high number of students with learning disabilities and recent immigrants, many of whom don’t speak English. In the last three years, Norman Thomas received Ds on its report cards, while Washington Irving was given two F grades and a C. Most recently, Norman Thomas’ graduation rate has increased slightly to 43 percent, while Washington Irving’s has decreased to 39 percent.

Both schools are on the State Education Department’s list of 34 city schools that it wants to see replaced.

Throughout the school closing hearings, critics have charged that the schools the DOE wanted to close didn’t meet the department’s own criteria and that some were even improving. At a City Council hearing, Deputy Chancellor John White defended the department’s choices.

“This is not a random list; these are the lowest performers even considered among a set of schools where students are not achieving at acceptable levels,” White said.

Going by graduation and drop out data for the class of 2009, Washington Irving is the city’s lowest performer, not including transfer schools and schools that have already been closed based on similar data. It’s not the only struggling school the city has decided to keep open, but it stands out when compared to those that are being closed this year, such as the Gateway School for Environmental Research and Technology. Gateway graduated 48 percent of its students last year and got two C grades and a B over the last three years.

But DOE spokesman Daniel Kanner said the department focused on other criteria when deciding to keep Irving open.

“We look at a variety of factors when determining which schools to target for phase out and the 19 schools that we proposed to be phased out demonstrated a long-standing inability to serve students well,” Kanner said. “We take different actions based on different circumstances.”

Unlike some other schools that were closed for poor grades and graduation rates, the DOE saw Washington Irving floundering and gave it a boost.

Rather than close the school after it received two F grades, the department assigned Washington Irving an executive principal, Bernardo Ascona, who was given a $25,000 bonus to improve the school’s academics. The DOE also began downsizing the school, which had over 2,500 students in 2006 and has about 1,400 this year, according to its website.

“We’ve seen the school move from an F to a C,” Kanner said. “We’ve seen significant increases in 9th grade credit accumulation. We have more work to do but we have taken action and we’ll continue to build on the progress that we see they’ve made over the last year.”

Washington Irving students  said they like the new principal, but with so many students cutting class (the attendance rate hovers around 70 percent), the school hadn’t improved.

“The principal is trying really hard, but the students aren’t helping him achieve what he wants to,” said Imane Saif, a sophomore.

Ascona did not respond to requests for comment.

Source: Anna Phillips

More than half of the New York City’s Hispanic students graduated from high school last year, the first time the city has reached that bar since it began tracking graduation rates in the 1980s.

That statistic stood out among several gains reported in graduation rate data trumpeted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein today. The city has nearly halved its drop-out rate over the past five years, and the number of students earning Regents and Advanced Regents diplomas rose, according to data released today by the city and state education departments.

“The results for New York City are historic,” said Bloomberg, speaking to reporters at the city Department of Education’s Tweed Courthouse headquarters this afternoon.

The city’s four-year graduation rates for students who entered high school in 2005 was 59 percent, up three percentage points from students the year before.

New York City’s gains compare favorably to those in the state’s other major urban districts. In 2005, the city reported roughly the same graduation rates as Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester and Yonkers. But in the years since, New York City’s rates have risen more than 12 points, while the graduation rate for those four cities combined rose only 2.4 points.

Bloomberg used the data to promote the city’s conversion to mayoral control. He argued that even if state standards have become easier in recent years, as many critics have argued, the city’s growth compared to the rest of the state proves that the city’s gains are real.

Bloomberg and Klein also both argued the data released today demonstrated that the city was closing the achievement gap between white and Asian students and their black and Hispanic peers. But the head of the city’s principals union disputed that conclusion.

“We’re making some gains, but we’re not really closing the achievement gap,” said Ernie Logan, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators.

The graduation rate for both black and Hispanic students rose by about 14 percentage points over the past four years, compared to approximately 10 point increases in the white and Asian graduation rates in the same period. Since last year, rates for all four demographic groups rose at about the same pace, with Hispanic students showing the highest jump of 3.1 points.

The number of students earning Regents or Advanced Regents diplomas also grew last year, while the number of students opting for the less-challenging local diploma shrunk. In 2009, 44 percent of students earned either a Regents or an Advanced Regents diploma, an increase of 3 points from the year before. By contrast, the number of students graduating with a local diploma ticked down a percentage point from last year.

Students earn a Regents diploma when they pass five Regents exams. The state is eliminating the local diploma option, which requires a student to pass only two exams or hit a lower bar on three exams, beginning with the graduating class of 2012.

Klein acknowledged that fewer students will likely graduate when all students are required to meet the more rigorous graduation requirements.

“But that’s exactly what we want to do,” Klein said. “We want to raise the standards and have our kids work up to those standards.”

Klein also admitted the city’s graduation rates for special education students and those learning English are lackluster, though the city did see gains for both of those demographics. The graduation rate for English learners increased nearly four points over the year before. That’s a much smaller gain than last year, when the city saw a 10-point boost in the graduation rates for English language learners.

Just under a quarter of special education students graduated last year, an upswing from 22.5 percent the year before.

Since 2005, the city has followed the state’s formula for graduation rates, which includes local and Regents diplomas and all disabled students, but does not count special education diplomas and GEDs.

One big question mark remaining in the city’s analysis is the degree to which schools’ credit recovery practices are driving increased graduation rates. At present, students recover credits from failed classes by completing extra schoolwork, but critics have charged that schools can easily abuse the practice to boost low-performing students toward their diplomas without mastering the material.

In January, city officials announced they would begin monitoring how schools grant credit recovery. But because new credit recovery standards and monitoring went into effect midway through this school year, data on the practice will not become available until the end of next school year, the city’s education data czar, Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger, said today.

Skeptics of the city’s data reporting have also questioned whether discharge rates for students have risen, distorting the graduation rate gains. (The city tracks the numbers of students who transfer to another school system, are expelled, graduate early or leave school after their 21st birthday separately from drop-out rates.) But according to discharge data the city released to reporters today, the number of students in the class of 2009 who left high school was the lowest since the class of 2005. The number of students who left the city’s high schools grew between 2002 and 2007, but then began falling, according to the data.

Here is the city’s complete presentation on graduation rates given to reporters today:

Source: Maura Walz

Source: New York State Education Department

New York City’s graduation rates have increased for the fifth time in as many years.

The 4-year graduation rate for students who entered high school in 2005 was to 59 percent, according to data released today by State Education Commissioner David Steiner. That’s 3 percentage points higher than the graduation rate of 56 percent last year for students who started ninth grade in 2004. Another 3.7 percent of students graduated last summer, just after their fourth year of high school. And the city’s 5-year graduation rate rose 3 points as well, to 66 percent.

The overall state graduation rate ticked upward by one percentage point, to 72 percent. Steiner noted that the pace of growth statewide has slowed from last year.

We’ll have more detailed information on New York City’s rates and coverage of the mayor and chancellor’s take on the data later today. In the meantime, the state’s slides and spreadsheets are available here.

Source: Maura Walz

State and city officials are preparing right now to unveil graduation rates for students who entered high school in 2005.

The state has already dumped several massive sets of data on its Web site: One document shows overall 4-, 5-, and 6-year rates by local school district, and a second, much larger document shows each the graduation rate for each school in the state. A list of city schools only is at the end of this post.

But we still don’t know the city’s overall graduation rate, which last year was 56 percent. The 2009 figure will be in the presentation that State Education Commission David Steiner is delivering in just a few minutes (as soon as the Board of Regents finishes hearing about the space crunch in the state libraries). Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein are holding a briefing on the city’s graduation rate later this afternoon. 

Here are some other important data points to look out for today:

• How are students with special needs faring? The city saw a 10-point jump in the graduation rate for students who considered English language learners last year, which Klein attributed to the growth of high schools catering to new immigrants. Has that trajectory continued? And have city schools done any better graduating students with special needs? That rate has remained stubbornly low.
• What type of diploma are students earning? Students have the choice to earn a “local” diploma or take more Regents exams and get the more rigorous Regents diploma. But the state data groups students earning both types together. The distinction is important because soon, all students will have to earn the more rigorous diploma type, a change that has some advocates concerned about a graduation-rate drop-off, especially among the highest-need students.
• The city has made low graduation rates a key element of its argument for closing high schools. Do the schools that are being closed have the lowest graduation rates in the city? Or, as the Independent Budget Office suggested in a recent report, are the newest schools to be closed merely some of the city’s worst?
• Who are the worst performers? Of schools that aren’t being closed, Manhattan’s Washington Irving High School has the highest drop-out rate, at 33 percent. That means that one third of all students at Washington Irving formally drop out by the August when they would have graduated. A year ago, that figure was 23 percent. The school has a 4-year graduation rate of 39 percent. The school with the second-highest dropout rate, Peace and Diversity Academy, opened in 2004.

NYC 2009 Graduation Rates by School

Source: Philissa Cramer

Professional futurists continue to make outstanding contributions toward the development of understandings of the future, but is futures thought limited to this select group? Definitely not! With a do-it-yourself attitude, and leverage of the right resources, anybody can become an effective futurist. Here’s why:

1. Nobody knows the future – don’t trust anybody who says otherwise. The world is changing at an accelerating pace, and it’s simply getting harder and harder to imagine what will happen next, let alone 20 years from now. We are all white belts when it comes to approaching the future. We have never been there before, and it is hard to model a world that does not exist yet. What futurists provide is their “best guess” — hopefully supported by quality research and trends analyses.
2. Futuring is easier than you think. While some futures research methodologies, such as the Delphi method, require an element of professional experience and expertise, many others are easily done — and should be done — by just about anybody. Environmental scanning, for example, involves simply exposing yourself to as much data and information on a broad range as possible (i.e., reading as many newspapers as you can, daily). The futures wheel is related to mindmapping, and can be easily done within individual or group settings. Jerome Glenn and Theodore Gordon wrote an excellent volume on methodologies used by futurists, Futures Research Methodology Version 3.0 (Available at Amazon.com). For do-it-yourself futurists or those wishing to explore the field, it is an excellent resource that will get you going.
3. We are all futurists. Few activities are as natural and universal among humans and human cultures are storytelling. We use stories to share our memories and imaginations of events that have happened or will happen. We use stories to share histories, fables and myths of the past. We also use stories to share visions of and for the future — including goal setting, promises of change, narratives of how we improve ourselves, and even apocalyptic nightmares. Even in our sleep, we often dream about future scenarios. Futurists explicitly tap into our stories and the power of storytelling to share their visions and dreams. So can everybody else.
4. You can access the same information as professional futurists can. Unless if you’re divining knowledge from an isolated and highly controlled information source, the ubiquitous availability of data and information in today’s networked society mean that you can easily and cost-effectively build up your knowledge base of future trends. Moreover, you are welcome to join the same professional societies that professional futurists participate in, such as the World Future Society, providing you with the same connections and access to professional society-level knowledge they have.
5. We all create the future. Futurists do not create the future, everybody does. Time may move forward, but the future does not just “happen.” Rather we share a responsibility to ensure that the futures we create are positive (ideal outcomes for humanity, the world, etc.). Moreover, in our interconnected world, we cannot disconnect from our futures. We cannot “futureproof” an organization. Nor can we find ways to fight it as individuals. Rather we can harness our inner futurists and lead in the creation of futures of our own design.

Source: John Moravec

• The city schools are spending this week focusing on tolerance and respect. (NY1)
• Parents are organizing a “bake-in” to protest the city’s new bake sale rules. (Daily News)
• City Limits offers an overview of the city schools’ dismal budget outlook.
• The proposed state budget would eliminate many summer camp jobs for teenagers. (Times)
• Diane Ravitch summarizes why her education policy views changed over time. (Wall Street Journal)
• A man with a gun was killed by police outside Brooklyn’s PS 194 just after school let out. (Times)
• The Everyday Math program used in NYC is credited with test-score gains in D.C. (Washington Post)

Source: Philissa Cramer

• The mayor will give the principal of P.S. 24, Christina Fuentes, a Sloan Award tomorrow.
• A WNYC reporter visits a juvenile justice center and reports back on the conditions, funding problems.
• Newsweek says firing bad teachers and hiring good ones is imperative, nevermind the gray areas.
• A New Orleans charter school is built on teachers who work long hours for little, but can that continue?
• Diane Ravitch talks to Brian Lehrer about her new book and her change of mind.
• Edwize: more charter school regulation, not less, could have helped NY in its RttT bid.
• Patrick Sullivan, the parent of two Lower Lab students, says the Village Voice story got it wrong.
• Teacher quality isn’t the only important factor schools can control, school environment matters, too.
• Schools build around team structures are best for training teachers, writes a UFT blogger.
• Look for Race to the Top to be franchised out to other policy areas, write Kevin Carey.
• To repeat the eternal question: is what teachers do like what doctors or lawyers do?
• Teachable Moment is annoyed that the tenor of RttT coverage resembles that of a horse-race.
• And there’s no better cure for a Monday than a P.S. 22 performance. This time: Lisztomania.

Source: Anna Phillips

As dust settles on a months-long school rezoning battle in Tribeca, State Senator Daniel Squadron said he would introduce a new bill today that would force the Department of Education to give community leaders more information before they sit down to draw new zoning lines.

Standing outside the epicenter of that zoning battle, P.S. 234, Squadron said members of the parent council for District 2 had been asked to chose a rezoning plan — but hadn’t been given any information about how many kindergarten students to expect. As a result, P.S. 234 still has too many new students zoned for it, leaving families to take their chances in a lottery.

Shino Tanikawa, president of the Community Education Council for District 2, said DOE officials gave the council numbers for how many kindergarten and first-grade students are enrolled in Tribeca schools, but not projections for how many were coming down the pipeline.

“We kept asking for enrollment projections and the number they had was an aggregate number based on historical trends,” she said. “For the actual zoning we had to do, there was nothing.”

Squadron’s bill is based on recommendations in Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s report on school overcrowding. It would require the Department of Education to consider the birth rate and population projections coming out of the departments of Health and City Planning when making its own projections.

But the city is already using this data in its calculations, according to Department of Education spokesman Daniel Kanner.

“The SCA [School Construction Authority] already works closely with the Department of Health and the Department of City Planning in developing its annual projections,” Kanner said.

Eric Greenleaf, a P.S. 234 parent and district parent council member who has studied the city’s projections, said there are wide discrepancies between the city’s data and what Tribeca is experiencing.

“In the past, the city has employed consultants that said total growth over 10 years would be 10 percent. Down here we’ve seen that sometimes in one-year,” he said.

To deal with the overcrowding caused by a post-9/11 baby boom and real estate development, the city opened two new schools in Lower Manhattan this year: P.S. 276 and the Spruce Street School (P.S. 397). These schools opened a year ahead of schedule, in a temporary space in the department’s headquarters.

“What we’re concerned about now is that it looks like kindergarten registration and enrollment for next year is going to exceed the capacity of all the downtown schools, including the new schools, which means even before they open the schools are overcrowded,” Greeleaf said.

Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, said Squadron’s bill is a good first step toward easing overcrowding but needs “considerable strengthening.” Haimson said an independent body such as the city comptroller should comb through the enrollment projections as a check on the DOE’s methods.

The bill is being introduced today into the State Senate where neither Democrats nor Republicans have a voting majority, making it difficult to pass any legislation.

New York, NY — State Senator Daniel Squadron, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, other elected officials and public school parents announced legislation today that would help prevent school overcrowding and improve long-term planning for New York City schools.  Senator Squadron’s bill, based on recommendations from a report by Borough President Stringer, will include mechanisms for more accurate student population projections, more transparency and feedback in planning and a stronger voice for parents and the public.

The bill will include:

• More accurate projections: DOE will be required to consider birth-rate projections from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and population projections from the Department of City Planning when drawing school districts and zoning lines and when constructing its five-year capital plan.

• Transparency in planning: school siting plans will have to make public the data used to project student populations, and DOE must address how each siting plan responds to projected population changes.

• A stronger voice for the public: DOE must make public all comments it receives in response to its school siting plans and five-year capital plan, and must respond to those comments.

State Senator Daniel Squadron said, “When planning is off, communities suffer — that’s why we need better data, more transparency and a stronger voice for the community in school-seat planning.  These changes would offer more tools to prevent overcrowding and improve long-term planning for our schools.  I would like to thank Borough President Scott Stringer for his powerful report on our school overcrowding problems and his recommendations for how to address them.”

“My office has released three reports revealing the ways DOE fails to alleviate school overcrowding and plan for the future,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer.  “Tens of thousands of Manhattan students will be without school seats by 2016 unless we do something.  Having neighborhood schools with enough space for their young children is often the determining factor in the decision families make to stay in our city.  I applaud Senator Squadron for introducing legislation that will bring school planning back to reality.”

“Kindergarteners weren’t born yesterday, so by the time they’re old enough to go to school, there ought to be enough time to plan adequate space in our schools to educate them,” said Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh. “The legislation proposed today recognizes that planning ahead and involving public school families and the public in the process, are the surest ways to alleviate the overcrowding that makes it harder for our children to learn in many schools throughout the city.”

“School overcrowding is an inexcusable offense, especially in a city as resourceful as ours,” said Tricia Joyce, a parent of two students in public school.  “Packing 30+ children into a room with one teacher, lunch at 10 am or 2pm, one or no weekly gym periods, in a building never meant to be a school is not the way to support our children or the teachers that have devoted their lives to teaching them.  It’s time to reverse this course and re-establish our priorities so our children can not only survive, but thrive into our leaders of tomorrow.”

Senator Squadron will introduce the bill in Albany tomorrow.

Source: Anna Phillips

News from New York City:

• PTAs at 26 schools have raised more than $2 million this year to pay for extra teachers aides. (Post)
• The Board of Regents is considering eliminating 13 Regents exams to save money. (Daily News,Post)
• Parents say the Joel Klein-Eva Moskowitz e-mails should stop school closures for now. (Daily News)
• State Sen. Bill Perkins is at odds with many of his Harlem constituents on education policy. (Times)
• A member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board says the teachers union should get out of Harlem.
• A teacher is in the rubber room after being accused of choking a student at Life Academy HS. (Post)
• Students at the Brooklyn charter school that parents say is too strict earn top test scores. (Post)
• Parents and students protested against the impending closures of Catholic schools. (Daily News)
• Students from Samuel Gompers HS competed in a memory competition this weekend. (Daily News)
• This year’s Penny Harvest change drive will collect funds for Haiti. (NY1)
• Bob Herbert backs the New York Civil Liberties Union’s safety lawsuit against the city schools. (Times)

And beyond:

• Some think teachers can be made better with a new kind of teacher education. (Times)
• Others argue that teaching is an innate skill, so more bad teachers should be fired. (Newsweek)
• Ed Sec Arne Duncan said states shouldn’t change schools policy just for money. (GothamSchools, Post)
• The Daily News says New York should still make changes to increase its Race to the Top chances.
• The Wall Street Journal says Race to the Top will fail because it’s trying to be all things to all people.
• Duncan is in Selma, Ala., today to unveil stepped-up civil rights initiatives. (Times, Wall Street Journal)
• President Obama’s warm response to the Central Falls mass teacher firing was “tough love.” (Times)
• Similar mass firings where teachers had to reapply for their jobs have helped some schools. (USA Today)
• Educational and fiscal imperatives compete in districts’ move to four-day weeks. (Wall Street Journal)
• Readers weigh in on Diane Ravitch’s changing education policy positions. (Times)
• A Boston Globe columnist argues against the current drive toward national standards.

Source: Philissa Cramer

So here’s a 5:30 am brain dump because I woke up thinking about all of the minds on fire at TEDxNYED yesterday and there’s no way I’m going back to sleep, not with the brilliant voices the likes of Andy Carvin teaching me how social media can save people’s lives, saying “voluteerism has been redefined, and we’re the ones redefining it;” and Michael Wesch, saying “there is no opting out of new media,” making the point that we’re going to be living in a world of almost ubiquitous networks, almost ubiquitous computing, almost ubiquitous information at almost unlimited speed, about almost everything, almost everywhere, from almost anywhere, on almost all kinds of devices, but that “almost” is “the site of all of our battles,” and that to fight those battles we need “open, daring, caring, collabortarive and voracious learners;” and Lawrence Lessig, my hero, who once again challenged us to challenge the staus quo and change the world; and David Wiley, who blew me away with more than one line but especially this one, that “if there is no sharing, there is no education;” and Jay Rosen who made me think deeply about the potential at our fingertips when we participate in the crowdsourced compilation of information to change the world, wondering as he spoke, how do we teach this to our kids, (Jay, whose self-description as “an introvert who has learned to fake conviviality” rang really true, and how when I Tweeted that out a whole bunch of people replied with “me too”); and Jeff Jarvis who pretty much threw education under the bus but made a pretty compelling comparison between our current state and the current turmoil in journalism, (seeing him being interviewed in the hallway afterward, Flip video camera in his face, saying “the things that are happening to journalism right now are going to happen to education sooner than we think”); and George Siemens, who after throwing Jeff under the bus, echoed David, saying “when we learn transparently, we become teachers”, me going “Yes!” inside, and then George adding “The solutions to the problems of education concern me more than the problems themselves” which occupied most of my time during my 75-minute drive home; and Amy Bruckman who talked about how we need to be active managers of our own learning; and Dan Meyer, the very tall Dan Meyer who so eloquently articulated the need for and showed how to get to “patient problem solving” for our kids, me thinking about my own kids’ impatience, and, in turn, my own when I was a kid (and to some extent, still as an adult…wondering if having Dan as a teacher might have changed that); and, finally Chris Lehmann, amped up on about 38 hours straight without sleep, making the articulate and compelling and passionate case that we need schools, we want schools, but we want them to be places of inquiry, of love, and of compassion, not places of standardization, thinking about all of these ideas and the conversations at the breaks with Sylvia Martinez and Christian Long and Alex Ragone and Amy Bowllan and many others, and for the most part wanting to spend every day like this, steeped in the ideas and the interactions and the passion, but all the while, in the back of my brain, wondering, “what now?”…what’s going to change?…a few hundred people in the room, a few thousand more online, and a few thousand more soon to be watching the archives, but still, wondering…how much further does this get us?…and wondering, feeling the discomfort of the lack of diversity in the room, lack of real diversity in the opinions, the fear of spending yet another day in the echo chamber which, no doubt has me energized and has my brain buzzing and has me thinking and reflecting but also has me wondering “so what?”…wondering how many of these conversations are going to be required to push education in a meaningfully different direction, wondering if our “solutions” are any better than our problems, wondering if we’re seeking one solution when we should be seeking many, that we’re moving away from an easy “one size fits all” vision of education to a much messier, more difficult to imagine “many sizes for many learners” vision, and wondering, finally, how we make sense of that for our kids.

Source: Will Richardson

• New York’s RttT application has some sentences only the most jargon literate can decipher.
• The point spread among RttT finalists is so close, it’ll all come down to states’ presentations.
• A new study finds numerous problems with the common standards movement.
• To raise money for Haiti, adults pledged money to P.S. 7 students for their “playathon.”
• A first-year teacher wonders how young teachers should go about distancing themselves from students.
• City Room’s Complaint Box admonishes those who display their brilliant acts of parenting too loudly.
• Emmy Partin writes: states that are finalists for RttT but don’t win could suffer in round two.
• Space-sharing at P.S. 198 and the Lower Lab school isn’t the crisis some say it is, a parent writes.
• The city wants to move one of Eva Moskowitz’s charter schools out of P.S. 123 and bring another one in.
• A member of the UFT caucus ICE says it may be an opposition group, but it approves of some things.
• Be sure to pick up the Sunday New York Times as Elizabeth Green’s story is on the cover.
• Adults surveyed about their experience with high school guidance gave counselors slow marks.
• And Joel Klein ran up the City Hall steps yesterday, right past people protesting his policies.

Source: Anna Phillips

As finalist states head into the home stretch of competition for coveted Race to the Top funds, who’s running the show could make all the difference, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said today.

Duncan appeared today at a panel with former Education Secretary Richard Riley at a professional development conference for teachers in Manhattan. Speaking with reporters afterward, Duncan reiterated what he has often said: Race to the Top applications will be judged on “the three C’s,” a state’s “courage, commitment and capacity” to put its plans into action.

When I asked him today how the contest’s reviewers will determine capacity, Duncan said judges’ appraisals of the people behind the plans will be the most important factor — more important, he said, than a state’s policy track record so far.

That stance is likely to comfort New York officials, who have banked in part on the strong reputations of the state education system’s leadership to drive the state’s Race to the Top application, even in the face of perceived setbacks such as the legislature’s failure to lift the statewide cap on charter schools.

State Education Commissioner David Steiner arrived at his job in October bringing with him promises of change in the state education department and a reputation as an innovator in the field of teacher training. And Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch has often emphasized that her reform priorities and those of Steiner — centered around raising academic standards, improving state tests, overhauling the state’s system for tracking student data and making teacher training more practical — align with Obama administration goals.

Each finalist state will send teams of five to Washington, D.C. in two weeks to make their final pitches to the Race to the Top judges. The judges will adjust their scoring of each state’s application in response to their impressions of each team’s presentations.

The point spread among finalists’ applications is so close that states’ performances on these presentations will be the deciding factor, according to EdWeek’s Politics K-12.

The state has not yet determined who exactly will represent New York in their presentation, state education department Tom Dunn told me yesterday. Today Duncan made clear that he wants to meet the captains of each state’s proposals, not outside consultants.

“Bring us the folks who are going to be doing the work,” Duncan said.

Source: Maura Walz