Best of Class: They're Waiting On Us

Best of Class: They're Waiting On Us: I remain cautiously optimistic that at some point, politicians and educators will figure “it” out. “It” being the sobering reality that we ...

They're Waiting On Us

I remain cautiously optimistic that at some point, politicians and educators will figure “it” out. “It” being the sobering reality that we know more than is needed to ensure both universal literacy and numeracy.

From my perspective, informed by over 30 years in education including 12 as a superintendent of schools, we have the “knowledge” and tools available now to do what no generation has achieved to date.

More than hyperbole or good intentions, our learners literally can’t wait.  Each, hour, day, week, month and year we, the adults, fail to implement effective, evidence-based, and transformative impactful practices and programs, the gaps in achievement, access, opportunity and equity widen.  The dirty little secret is the cost of failed learning continues to consume more and more dollars not just in education but also in almost every facet of society. 

When will we accept that the treatment mindset versus an early and aggressive prevention to intervention model is a key to economic prosperity, security, and expansion?

Policy and Permission are key.  They go hand in hand.

First, to truly transform policy we have to radically shift how we determine success and effect. Consider, to what degree do we have a universal, agreed upon answers to these questions?

1. What is the purpose as well as expected outcome of an education?
2. What does it mean to be an educated citizen in the 21^st century?

Arguably, the answers are not a list a job skills, not test scores, not increased credits, not high school graduation or even college graduation rates.  Rather, the answers will be much more fundamental and foundational. 

Imagine if we truly put our collective efforts in first ensuring universal literacy and numeracy, addressing the most fundamental building blocks, and suspending all the excuses, policies, and practices that prevent us from achieving these; would unemployment, high school dropouts, incarceration rates, physical and mental health and other related issues be different?

I suggest that our inability to reach consensus let alone agreement at the local, state, regional, and national level is fundamental to our inability to ensure universal literacy and numeracy.

We appear limited by answering these questions from an individual rather than from a societal or public good viewing point.  From a policy perspective, focusing on the individual does not and will not address the most pressing and arguably the greatest needs of access, opportunity and equity.  Achieving universal literacy and numeracy takes nothing away from any class of citizens, or is somehow denying any group or individuals a certain station in life.

Rather, universal literacy and numeracy is fundamental to our society and a democracy.

The whole is the sum of its parts.  As envisioned by the Founding Fathers, an educated citizenry is comprised of educated citizens.  Failing to educate each citizen fails the basic precepts, fundamentals, and therefore foundation of our democratic society.

The necessary shift in policy begins first with answering the aforementioned questions.  Permission must be given both at the formal and informal level to wrestle with the heart of these questions.  

The results of transparent, open, and sincere dialogue consistently and constantly centered on these two questions will bring us closer to each citizen authentically experiencing the promises of an education.

Lest you think me naïve, I am confident that any conversation centered on these two questions will be fraught with conflict, passion, conviction, emotion, opinion, and most certainly an array of untested mental models that have, for the most part shaped policy as it is today.

But while the children who are most depended upon us wait, their futures, their contributions, and their impacts to our society hang in the balance.  

What are we waiting for?  

They are waiting for us!

Best of Class: Scale Begins with Answerable Questions

Best of Class: Scale Begins with Answerable Questions: With the routines of schooling in motion, educators and educational leaders cannot afford not to include both reflection and review as part...

Scale Begins with Answerable Questions

With the routines of schooling in motion, educators and educational leaders cannot afford not to include both reflection and review as part of their daily habits especially related to the expectations and uses of instructional technology albeit tools, programs, or devices.  

The following four (4) questions are a solid starting point:

1.     What strategies are we implementing that create and sustain 21st century competencies while balancing the need to acquire core academic skills? 

2.     What best practices are we integrating into daily practice that prepare students for college and career readiness? 

3.     Are our District-level strategies and best practices creating a learner-driven educational culture? 

4.     Are our Classroom-level strategies and best practices empowering a generation of learner-driven students? 

Though far from provocative, these four questions are critical to awareness, understanding and thinking within the framework and context of our best hopes and expectations of, for, and by technology. 

Fundamentally, technology integration leading to the conversion of teaching and learning is one best hope of this digital age.  Hybrid, blended, flipped, and a converted learning environment where technology is leveraged to drive unprecedented learning is central to 21^st century learning.  Learners empowered to author, co-create, collaborate, communicate, and own their learning is not only an outcome of technology but also a means to achieve it.

Our worst fears are that we will not realize the transformation of teaching and learning caused by the learning tools of this century.

We know with little hesitation that devices irrespective of manufacturer, label, or brand provide unprecedented opportunity for engagement.  We know engagement is also from and for both the teacher and learner alike.  However, engagement is but a first step. 

A second step is the creation, demonstration, application, and connection of learning on unprecedented levels.  This is where the unknown becomes daunting to some, irresistible to others. 

We know connectivity and access know no bounds.  A worldwide faculty of experts, doers, dreamers, entrepreneurs, designers, and etc. are at the touch of screen (or a key stroke).  Incredible that the world, the universe for that matter is close to becoming the norm for information and knowledge access and creation, not the exception.

As the calculus of where to find, interact, and interface with information and knowledge continues to change, there remains several challenges - once thought insurmountable but now can be addressed at scale.

First and foremost is ensuring that each learner enters school with the requisite skills, knowledge, and experience.  Much has and will continue to be written about the importance of literacy.  There is, however, the subject of mathematics that is often overlooked and underutilized as a fundamental, essential skill and knowledge set.

The correlation of mathematics to success in school should be obvious.  Yet, it isn’t.  Consider, the M in STEM.  Where are the foundations laid for learners to access and be successful in higher levels of mathematics?  Consider, college and career readiness.  Further still, consider the social-emotional development of learners? 

Lastly for the moment, consider the historically under-represented, minority and high poverty learners and high school completion let alone their access and opportunity in college and career fields heavily dependent upon math.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will explore in greater depth the aforementioned correlations with mathematics accompanied by the power of technology and why “scale” is within our reach.

The answers or at least the conversation that emerges is about getting to "different".  The best hopes are that we change the way we think to change the way we behave to authentically leverage the tools of this age to accomplish what no other generation of educators has to date.  

Curious? 

I hope so – more to come.

Best of Class: Education: A "Public Good"

Best of Class: Education: A "Public Good": “… in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good ...

Education: A "Public Good"

“… in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only” (A tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, 1859).

Contrasting extremes is indeed the time in which we find ourselves living. Name a topic or issue that doesn’t engender polar opposite positions, rhetoric, and “facts”. The one area that unapologetically should not create controversy or conflict is education.

The value proposition of an education is a “public” good. What must not be in debate are the individual, community, state, region, and national benefits of an educated citizenry. Though we seem to be caught up in perpetual national debate of “how” rather than a clearly defined “what” and “why” of an education.

Where, when and to what extent we lost sight of this reality is exactly why there is such conflict and controversy in what should be the obvious – we all benefit and conversely we all suffer when there is failed learning.

The peripheral or fringe arguments, opinions, and debates surrounding, for example Common Core, misses the “public good” outcome of consistent and common standards. Refusing to opine the motivation or agenda of those that appear to have missed or ignored the reality that it was the Governors and Chief State officers that recognized the injustice experienced by learners across the nation by inconsistent standards and therefore took action for the “public good” of education, I simply ask that we seize the opportunity to speak to the promises, the benefits, and desired outcomes of an education.

Simply or maybe not so, is time to move the conversation forward to what matters most. To do so consider –

•   What are the promises of an education?

•   What are the benefits of an education?

•   In what ways do we as a community, state, region, or nation benefit from an educated citizenry? (Or do we?)

•   What do my own children (or yours) lose if all learners experience the promises or achieve the benefits of an education?

•   Why is it important that all be educated? (Or is it?)

•   Why is it important that all citizens benefit from an education? (Or should they?)

I remain extremely confident and optimistic that if we individually and collectively wrestle with the aforementioned questions that the “how” will begin to make more sense raising our national awareness, understanding and support for innovation, creativity, and the means to meet or exceed our expectations for, of and by an education.

Best of Class: Equity In Education - The Game Changer

Best of Class: Equity In Education - The Game Changer: In my last post, I posited that educational equity is the first step toward authentic access and opportunity. Educational equity requires t...

Equity In Education - The Game Changer

In my last post, I posited that educational equity is the first step toward authentic access and opportunity. Educational equity requires taking the necessary steps to ensure that each learner can and will be successful. Without equity, we will continue down this road of failed programs, failed practices, and failed promises for a significant percent of our learners.

My convictions about educational equity are driven by moral and ethical principles and yes, fairness - the belief that fairness is predicated on each learner deserving our very best every day irrespective of ethnicity, language, gender, or social-economics.

Defining “fairness” and "best" has evolved from personal experiences over time. For example, high poverty and historically marginalized and under represented learners enrolled and successful in courses and programs like advance placement, honors, talented and gifted, college/university prep to name four areas caused me to ponder “fairness” with respect to expectations, choice, requisite learning, and experience.  

Do all learners have "choice" to participate in these experiences? Are all learners prepared for these experiences?  Are there expectations that each learner should be prepared for access and opportunity to these programs?  What does choice really mean?

Further still, I was forced to rethink “fairness” and "best" given the high percentage of students identified and placed in special education as well as remedial courses – not to mention the number of disciplinary referrals and suspensions that were predominantly our disadvantaged learners and learners of color.

I witnessed well-intentioned educators, parents, and community members encourage, incent, and reward learners for their pledges to do “good” in school and “attend” college. “Going to college” was the oft cited response by learners when asked, “What are you going to do when you graduate from high school?”

Fairness, however, requires more than aspirations, more than pithy statements, or programs. Equity is ensuring that each learner, irrespective of their “zip code”, has the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to have authentic access and opportunity for full participation in the educational experience.

A first step for us was shifting our focus to the requisite learning of essential skills, knowledge and experience - for learners to have authentic choices about their learning, they had to have a solid foundation. Though this may seem obvious, we had to ask ourselves if it was “fair” for students not to demonstrate proficiency let alone mastery of literacy and numeracy before moving forward? The resounding response was “of course not”. The problem, our problem was not in the “will” but in the “how” to do this.

With advances in technology, now more than ever we can disrupt failed learning by aggressively monitoring and reporting leading indicators of learning in process as well as the progress of learning. That is, we can “peek” inside the mind of a learner to ascertain how he or she is constructing meaning, formulating ideas, and making learning choices or decisions in real time.

Further, technology-based supplemental programming now makes possible the building, bridging, and reinforcing of skills, knowledge, and experience making “fair” the access and opportunity of, by and for education – for all.

It became very clear to me that unless we literally and figuratively “reset” the system by radically shifting from an intervention or treatment model to “prevention” to intervention, there was not going to be substantive improvement.

A majority of our learners could not access the full curriculum. They were denied these opportunities due to the failure to learn attributed to (as we learned) beginning their formal learning experience with certain gaps, or inexperience with the antecedents of literacy and numeracy; and the failure to “catch up” in essential learning once they entered our system. It was not an intelligence or capability issue; rather, they just didn’t have the experiences preparing them for formal learning.

Why then, would we expect all learners to learn and progress in the same way, at the same time, and in same place?

This inexperience resulted in unrealistic expectations for teachers and learners alike – not to mention actual results. This is where educational equity assuages the expectations. Placing the resources, tools, time, and programming to meet the needs of individual learners is paramount. Eradicating “sameness” with respect to the assumptions that all learners learn in the same way and at the same time is central to fairness. Similarly, the notion certain learners lose an advantage or are denied certain resource for the sake of others is absurd.

The mere cost to remediate, “treat” failed learning is consuming resources at an exponential rate adversely impacting all learners. Until such time that we collectively understand and act to prevent failure we will continue to miss-serve, underserve, or dis-serve learners that have the greatest dependency on educators for their success.

Let me say this clearly, the cost of failure is too expensive. We can’t afford it.

Suffice; fairness is intentional – with purpose. Educational equity is good, right, and true for all. If we are to ensure the promises of an education including access and opportunity created by it, then we must rethink “fairness” in light of preventing the failure to learn. In my experience the path to preventing intervention was providing the tools, resources, and permission to meet the needs of each learner – not treat each learner the “same”.