If you can find 11 minutes in the next day or two, I urge you to find time to listen to/watch Ken Robinson's animated dissection of the degree to which our current system of education is profoundly unsuited for our times and our children.
http://www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg
Many of you have heard me or others say many of the same things - that batch processing kids deadens their motivation, that natural curiosity gets labeled ADHD, and that we make a false and damaging distinction between academic learning and hands-on learning. My favorite part, if were not so sad, would be when he shares the study that demonstrates the degree to which, over time, our schools greatly reduce the natural capacity for divergent thinking that almost every child is a "genius" at.
I'll be showing this video everywhere I can from here on out - Sir Kenneth elucidates the intellectual underpinnings of what we're trying to do with Maine Enterprise Schools better than I ever could - and it makes me that much more eager to be part of the creation of a new system, were the beauty of an education driven by deep, lived experience with the arts, ecosystems, and the real work of humans (and their machines) is available to every single child, regardless of place or parentage.
Saturday, October 23
Wednesday, October 20
Charter as Verb: Innovation and Autonomy
Yesterday I was asked by a candidate for Maine's legislature exactly what I would propose to spur the kind of innovation that Maine's schools need. A while back I drafted such a list, bulleted below.
But I also heard from a colleague in the charter school community who suggested that the debate in Maine would be healthier if focused on the verb form of "charter." "moving the word charter from describing a type of school to a crucial part of the process for establishing autonomous and innovative schools. For example: start using charter as a verb in any conversation about ‘innovative schools’, i.e. ‘by what process can someone obtain a charter to start an innovative, autonomous school?"
The public debate on "charter schools" often focuses on the "what'- often in opposition to some other "what," such as "charter schools take money from public schools." "Charter" is, in fact, the "how." In the states where charter schools make the greatest difference for the most students, it is the strength of that chartering process that enables that difference to be made - for PUBLIC school students.
The "what" list below is my answer to the legislators question: what needs to be different to produce better results for more kids? Chartering new, innovative, autonomous public schools is HOW we can get there. If chartering new schools is an action or a process they oppose, what action or process do they propose instead?
Innovations and Autonomies for Maine's K-12 Schools
*Funding mechanisms that enable cost-effective small schools to flourish, such as allowing two or more existing districts to share effective small schools.
*Regulatory structures that enable and encourage community partnerships with non-profits and social service agencies, so that Maine's many assets can flourish with integrated approaches rather than compete to maintain disintegrated, less than effective approaches.
*Assessment systems that increase accountability and produce better outcomes for students - without crushing the morale of students, teachers, and administrators. Models of streamlined, web-based systems exist and can be easily adapted to Maine's Learning Results.
*"Best practice" teaching contracts (in collaboration with the MEA) that enable the most talented people to not only enter teaching, but to thrive and stay in teaching. Such contracts enable both more flexibility and more accountability, enabling teachers to work in innovative small schools without losing seniority or benefits and ensuring that teams of teachers both can and MUST collaborate on best practices that actually produce measurable results for their students. Innovative, autonomous small schools also can give parents a choice other than private schools, creating MORE, not fewer, jobs for teachers.
* Longer school days and year round programming that ensure that students are engaged beyond 2:15 each day and throughout the summer - if that is what is best for them.
What autonomies are needed (and not needed) ensure broad support and effective implementation?
*Principals (and students) need waivers of certain restrictive rules and practices in order the best teams possible. Teacher training, certification, and contracts were all designed for and/or responded to a set of assumptions that no longer are true. Excellent examples of schools, contracts, and innovative teaching exist, but often do not fit well, or at all, with the restrictive, arbitrary, cumbersome, and, it must be said, only partially effective systems we have for ensuring teacher quality.
*Funding decisions need to be made at the school level, so that each school can allocate resources according to the needs of their students. While a formula such as EPS can be helpful in deciding a school's overall budget and ensure that small schools are funded at the same level as larger schools, the formula should specify only a RATIO of overall certificated staff proportional to traditional schools, not a list of specific job titles.
*These schools must be FULLY public schools. Existing public or non-profit schools need to be able to transform themselves to "innovative, autonomous schools," enabling them to have the same status as Maine's academies in creating agreements with districts for tuitioning students. But in order to do so, they MUST agree to standards and a process for "replicating the demographics of the sending area." In other words, such schools cannot attain public school status, unless, no matter how small, they agree to serve special education students, gifted students, and everyone else, using lottery systems or other means of ensuring equity.
But I also heard from a colleague in the charter school community who suggested that the debate in Maine would be healthier if focused on the verb form of "charter." "moving the word charter from describing a type of school to a crucial part of the process for establishing autonomous and innovative schools. For example: start using charter as a verb in any conversation about ‘innovative schools’, i.e. ‘by what process can someone obtain a charter to start an innovative, autonomous school?"
The public debate on "charter schools" often focuses on the "what'- often in opposition to some other "what," such as "charter schools take money from public schools." "Charter" is, in fact, the "how." In the states where charter schools make the greatest difference for the most students, it is the strength of that chartering process that enables that difference to be made - for PUBLIC school students.
The "what" list below is my answer to the legislators question: what needs to be different to produce better results for more kids? Chartering new, innovative, autonomous public schools is HOW we can get there. If chartering new schools is an action or a process they oppose, what action or process do they propose instead?
Innovations and Autonomies for Maine's K-12 Schools
*Funding mechanisms that enable cost-effective small schools to flourish, such as allowing two or more existing districts to share effective small schools.
*Regulatory structures that enable and encourage community partnerships with non-profits and social service agencies, so that Maine's many assets can flourish with integrated approaches rather than compete to maintain disintegrated, less than effective approaches.
*Assessment systems that increase accountability and produce better outcomes for students - without crushing the morale of students, teachers, and administrators. Models of streamlined, web-based systems exist and can be easily adapted to Maine's Learning Results.
*"Best practice" teaching contracts (in collaboration with the MEA) that enable the most talented people to not only enter teaching, but to thrive and stay in teaching. Such contracts enable both more flexibility and more accountability, enabling teachers to work in innovative small schools without losing seniority or benefits and ensuring that teams of teachers both can and MUST collaborate on best practices that actually produce measurable results for their students. Innovative, autonomous small schools also can give parents a choice other than private schools, creating MORE, not fewer, jobs for teachers.
* Longer school days and year round programming that ensure that students are engaged beyond 2:15 each day and throughout the summer - if that is what is best for them.
What autonomies are needed (and not needed) ensure broad support and effective implementation?
*Principals (and students) need waivers of certain restrictive rules and practices in order the best teams possible. Teacher training, certification, and contracts were all designed for and/or responded to a set of assumptions that no longer are true. Excellent examples of schools, contracts, and innovative teaching exist, but often do not fit well, or at all, with the restrictive, arbitrary, cumbersome, and, it must be said, only partially effective systems we have for ensuring teacher quality.
*Funding decisions need to be made at the school level, so that each school can allocate resources according to the needs of their students. While a formula such as EPS can be helpful in deciding a school's overall budget and ensure that small schools are funded at the same level as larger schools, the formula should specify only a RATIO of overall certificated staff proportional to traditional schools, not a list of specific job titles.
*These schools must be FULLY public schools. Existing public or non-profit schools need to be able to transform themselves to "innovative, autonomous schools," enabling them to have the same status as Maine's academies in creating agreements with districts for tuitioning students. But in order to do so, they MUST agree to standards and a process for "replicating the demographics of the sending area." In other words, such schools cannot attain public school status, unless, no matter how small, they agree to serve special education students, gifted students, and everyone else, using lottery systems or other means of ensuring equity.
Sunday, October 17
MEA members, Goldwater Republicans voting for Cutler?
An anonymous comment came in over the weekend on my post about the Maine Compact for Higher Ed's governor's debate.
"I listened to the MPBS, Jennifer Rooks and the candidates Thursday afternoon driving from Bangor to Farmington and had almost the exact same reaction as you. As arrogant as Cutler comes across I am getting closer to giving him my vote much against my usual party line affiliation. As an educator and as a mom whose son returned to Maine and has a small business I know first hand that many of Maine's schools do not support Maine students with the kind of learning experiences that help students to maximize their potentials and help all students become productive and healthy citizen of the world. I am very much in favor of Maine having public Charter schools and can no longer support the MEA."
I read that comment after getting off the phone with a friend who retired from a successful international business he founded and ran from Maine. He'd called at his wife's suggestion with this question: did I think that, despite the perceptions of Mr. Cutler's arrogance on the campaign trail, he'd make a good governor?
"I listened to the MPBS, Jennifer Rooks and the candidates Thursday afternoon driving from Bangor to Farmington and had almost the exact same reaction as you. As arrogant as Cutler comes across I am getting closer to giving him my vote much against my usual party line affiliation. As an educator and as a mom whose son returned to Maine and has a small business I know first hand that many of Maine's schools do not support Maine students with the kind of learning experiences that help students to maximize their potentials and help all students become productive and healthy citizen of the world. I am very much in favor of Maine having public Charter schools and can no longer support the MEA."
I read that comment after getting off the phone with a friend who retired from a successful international business he founded and ran from Maine. He'd called at his wife's suggestion with this question: did I think that, despite the perceptions of Mr. Cutler's arrogance on the campaign trail, he'd make a good governor?
Tuesday, October 5
'Waiting for Superman’ and the Education Debate
One of the most frustrating things about the education debate in the US is the role the media plays. There seem to be two approaches: boiling down complexities into easily opposable, simplistic sets of statistics that steamroll all nuance, or the opposite: taking an often heart-wrenching anecdote or example and investing it with a truth far greater than it actually represents.
Davis Guggenheim's "Waiting for Superman" does the latter, and Green Dot Charter Schools founder Steve Barr is right to be unnerved by the debate that has emerged. Once again, the conversation about what works and does not work for kids for gets trampled under the divisive, emotional half-truth of "charter vs. union."
Davis Guggenheim's "Waiting for Superman" does the latter, and Green Dot Charter Schools founder Steve Barr is right to be unnerved by the debate that has emerged. Once again, the conversation about what works and does not work for kids for gets trampled under the divisive, emotional half-truth of "charter vs. union."
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