The Maine Compact for Higher Education held their annual symposium yesterday, and the news was grim in several ways. I'll get to the gubernatorial grimness in a moment.
Anthony Carnevale of the Center on Education and the Workforce led off with a study projecting much greater growth in jobs and sectors that require more effective (and quite different) workers than Maine is currently producing. While I can quibble that the focus on post-secondary education as the gateway to earning power rests on some tenets that I think are worth challenging - the data, both current and projected, make clear that Mainers are going to struggle to find jobs that support families unless a dramatically different set of trends prevail.
Wednesday, September 29
Wednesday, September 22
Prepare Maine
Kudos to The Maine Coalition for Excellence in Education for the launch of Prepare Maine (and also for their "Education Roundup," a weekly overview of Maine education news and opinion - which we'll link to instead of trying to maintain the same thing ourselves).
The stated goal of Prepare Maine is "remodeling education for a stronger economy, better jobs and a brighter future." It is not only a big initiative for the Coalition, which is comprised of leaders from the business, non-profit, and education sectors, but a potentially important starting point for a real shift in how we view the link between education and economic development. I urge you to go their website, which does the best job of any I've seen of framing the issues with data and relevant research.
I also appreciate that they attempt to suggest solutions, and I hope that the seven recommendations on the solutions page lead in that direction. But here's where the challenge of building and leading a bi-partisan, cross-sector coalition comes in.
The stated goal of Prepare Maine is "remodeling education for a stronger economy, better jobs and a brighter future." It is not only a big initiative for the Coalition, which is comprised of leaders from the business, non-profit, and education sectors, but a potentially important starting point for a real shift in how we view the link between education and economic development. I urge you to go their website, which does the best job of any I've seen of framing the issues with data and relevant research.
I also appreciate that they attempt to suggest solutions, and I hope that the seven recommendations on the solutions page lead in that direction. But here's where the challenge of building and leading a bi-partisan, cross-sector coalition comes in.
Sunday, September 12
Maine Enterprise Schools featured at EdReformer
Adam Burk, Maine Enterprise Schools' volunteer Networking Director, was recently interviewed by EdReformer, from which our recent post on Rocketship Schools came. He blogs at Pushing Upward and CoöperativeCatalyst, and is an example of the kind of teacher we think can transform educational experiences for many young people - IF we are able to create the kinds of schools that not only draw extraordinarily committed folks like Adam in, but create the kinds of working conditions that keep them.
Much is made of the fact that study after study shows that the factor most associated with student learning is the "quality" of the teacher. What such research does not factor in is the degree to which many of the highest quality teachers leave within 1-5 years of beginning their career - not because they are not good at it, but because they are VERY good at it - and feel they can no longer compromise between what they know can do and what they are allowed to do.
Much is made of the fact that study after study shows that the factor most associated with student learning is the "quality" of the teacher. What such research does not factor in is the degree to which many of the highest quality teachers leave within 1-5 years of beginning their career - not because they are not good at it, but because they are VERY good at it - and feel they can no longer compromise between what they know can do and what they are allowed to do.
Wednesday, September 8
Rocketships's Blended Learning Model
Thanks to Betts Gorsky, who sent along this fascinating video, linked to below. Rocketship has several things in common with Maine Enterprise Schools...sort of where we'd like to be several years from now. They are not only a replication model (meant to be sustainable by having multiple autonomous public school or public charter sites) but one that rethinks some of the orthodoxies of how teachers and other staff are deployed. There are differences too: Rocketship focuses on the elementary years and assumes classroom-based instruction; we focus on middle and high school years with a largely individualized model. Both models, though, enable adults to work more effectively with students not by spending more money, but by spending what money there is differently.
From edreformer.com: "Here is a video of John Danner, founder of Rocketship Education, describing the hybrid learning model. This is also known as the blended learning model, or a teaching and school management methodology that can save 20% of staffing costs, or up to $550,000 a year, in Danner’s case.
Danner says: “You roll this…into a few things that make your school better. I like to say it’s like someone writing you a check for $500,000 every year and saying ‘Do things that improve your school.’”
Friday, September 3
Revolutionary idea triumphs over skeptics
Let's say, hypothetically, that you were someone with a potentially revolutionary idea. Let's also say that there are more than a few skeptics out there, and that you work in a field where...umm...the skeptics win more battles than the revolutionaries. If all that were true, then the headline above would draw you in, as it did me.
Nemitz' column rightly celebrates former Governor King's vision. Though that word can be sorely overused, at a simple level it means imagining the world as it going to be, not only as it is now. I was at the table as a Maine teacher during some of those early conversations, and heard many of the "give kids a chain saw" type comments, as well as all sorts of other dire predictions and accusations.
Nemitz' column rightly celebrates former Governor King's vision. Though that word can be sorely overused, at a simple level it means imagining the world as it going to be, not only as it is now. I was at the table as a Maine teacher during some of those early conversations, and heard many of the "give kids a chain saw" type comments, as well as all sorts of other dire predictions and accusations.
Thursday, September 2
Eliot Cutler on Merit Pay
I asked independent candidate for Governor Eliot Cutler to respond to my earlier post about merit pay, which made the point, among others, that the candidates needed to go beyond easily misunderstood terms like "merit pay" and help voters understand what that would mean for Maine's students, parents and teachers. His response, below, addresses several of the issues that entry raised. While there is still time for other candidates to develop education platforms as practical, clear and thoughtful, as of now, Mr. Cutler is the only candidate who has done so.
I believe that educators and teams of educators who demonstrate their ability to improve student achievement ought to be rewarded for their efforts. Recognition for growth in student success should not look only to student test scores nor should rewards be limited to pay. My plan will reward successful collaboration and support opportunities for school leadership and targeted professional development.
I believe that educators and teams of educators who demonstrate their ability to improve student achievement ought to be rewarded for their efforts. Recognition for growth in student success should not look only to student test scores nor should rewards be limited to pay. My plan will reward successful collaboration and support opportunities for school leadership and targeted professional development.
Fact and spirit
Response from friend, colleague, and former boss Scott Hartl, CEO of Expeditionary Learning: Italics his words, everything else mine.
In large measure I agree with your writing in both large point and specific, and I appreciate that you have obviously been on our new website (I have, and it is remarkably good...http://elschools.org/). In one paragraph, however, I do feel that you are incorrect in both fact and spirit, pasted in below for reference. "Expeditionary Learning Schools is a replication model that can start effective schools of 240 students or more, like Casco Bay HS...but they can't, if they're honest, produce the same rates of sustainable success when they try to do what Mike McCarthy did at King - take an existing, demoralized staff and a broad array of learning challenges and transform that into opportunity and, as we saw yesterday, results." EL's best data is often from schools like King that were in existence long before their engagement with EL. We are about to release a study of our Rochester schools that will be the best data and most rigorous study done on EL to date that supports this point.
In large measure I agree with your writing in both large point and specific, and I appreciate that you have obviously been on our new website (I have, and it is remarkably good...http://elschools.org/). In one paragraph, however, I do feel that you are incorrect in both fact and spirit, pasted in below for reference. "Expeditionary Learning Schools is a replication model that can start effective schools of 240 students or more, like Casco Bay HS...but they can't, if they're honest, produce the same rates of sustainable success when they try to do what Mike McCarthy did at King - take an existing, demoralized staff and a broad array of learning challenges and transform that into opportunity and, as we saw yesterday, results." EL's best data is often from schools like King that were in existence long before their engagement with EL. We are about to release a study of our Rochester schools that will be the best data and most rigorous study done on EL to date that supports this point.
Wednesday, September 1
Arne Duncan at King Middle School
If you have time, take a look at this video from Portland's WCSH-6. The 3 minutes of video provide a fascinating text of things said, implied, and ignored in the effort jump on the King bandwagon - a bandwagon that I'm on by the way. Some points:
First, Expeditionary Learning is not "so-called,"as the reporter described it, nor is the term interchangeable with "experiential learning," a wonderful term but far more generic in the sense that Maine Public Radio used it. Expeditionary Learning Schools has, over 17 years, "grown from a small adventurous group of ten schools into a network the size of a substantial urban school district." It is what in school innovation circles is described as a "replication model:" a (usually) non-profit organization that works with existing public schools and/or starts new public schools - often charter schools and often as part of the Gates Foundation's high school reform work. Why is this significant?
First, Expeditionary Learning is not "so-called,"as the reporter described it, nor is the term interchangeable with "experiential learning," a wonderful term but far more generic in the sense that Maine Public Radio used it. Expeditionary Learning Schools has, over 17 years, "grown from a small adventurous group of ten schools into a network the size of a substantial urban school district." It is what in school innovation circles is described as a "replication model:" a (usually) non-profit organization that works with existing public schools and/or starts new public schools - often charter schools and often as part of the Gates Foundation's high school reform work. Why is this significant?
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