Teacher in a Strange Land

Online Grading: Treat--or Trick?

My estimable teacher-blogger colleague, Ms. Bluebird, is sputtering about  the parent-accessible online grading system in her district. She bemoans the fact that parents aren't tracking their children's assignments and grades, even though it's now become totally convenient to (as the kiddies say) creep on their progeny. Evidently, this is an issue of deep concern to lots of teachers, as Ms. B's first 13 commenters enthusiastically jump on the "parents just don't care" bandwagon.

Ms. Bluebird totally rocks--but on this issue, I disagree. When it comes to online gradebooks, I believe what's happening here is a misguided faith in the magic of technology to solve problems (even things we didn't realize were problems beforehand). If parents weren't allowed to peek into teachers' gradebooks twenty years ago, what makes us think they're interested now? And furthermore--is it even a good idea to nurture grade-stalking in parents?

Points to consider:

•  Expecting parents to track their children's grades--and do something about low grades or missing assignments--shifts responsibility for learning and monitoring the grade to parents. And guess what? It's the student's job to do that, not Mommy's.

• When parents are suddenly hawking their gradebooks, teachers feel compelled to put lots of numbers in the book, proving that they're organized and soldiering away, assigning lots of homework and giving lots of grades. My principal sent us a memo suggesting that we add at least one new grade per week, it being worrisome when parents see that several days have gone by with no grading.

• Some of those grades represent formative assessment: constructive feedback to students in the process of learning to master a concept or skill. Formative assessment is supposed to be non-punitive--information that helps a student improve. If curriculum is appropriate--in the sweet spot where it challenges, but builds on prior learning--then formative assessment will show lots of room for growth. Try explaining that to one panicked parent at a time

• Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. (Einstein said that, not me.) An online gradebook converts all assessment data to numbers. Because it's...digital. Sometimes, kids need coaching or commentary, not a comparative percentage. Sometimes, it's OK to paint a pumpkin, just to see how it turns out. You don't have to grade everything, to make it real or valuable.
  

I find my district's online grading program so inflexible as to be nearly useless. I collected lots of valid assessment data on my students that could not be represented in the gradebook program (the program routinely converted a memorized D-flat major scale into 60%). I never checked on my son's grades, either, although it would have been extremely easy to do so--and, trust me, I am a caring parent, with a deep commitment to his education. I got his report card, and I went to parent-teacher conferences. And that--really--was enough.

Image: Snelly23 @ Flickr Creative Commons

A Drop of Golden Sun

There's a nifty YouTube video making the rounds among teacher types. I have a pretty high threshold for  being charmed, but this infectious little bit of fun made me stop obsessing about the stimulus money for education, Arne Duncan, and all the rest of my worldly cares. If you haven't seen it yet (hint: Julie Andrews pays a visit to Centraal Station in Antwerp, Belgium), take four minutes and treat yourself, here.

If there were ever a right time to have faith about the innate goodness of man, demonstrated by his willingness to drop self-consciousness and prance around in train stations, it's now. Don't want to get all Anne Frank here, but there's a lot of free-floating anxiety out there (justified free-floating anxiety)--and it's refreshing to see people of all ages having a blast, singing and dancing in public. Gives me hope.

As a music teacher, I seriously wonder about bloggers who engage in verbal death brawls over the question of whether creativity can be taught. Even without a randomized trial evaluating the precise measurable impact of strategies designed to expand thinking-- isn't it worth the attempt to create an environment where the hatching of new ideas is nurtured, and kids' brains get to go out and play?  Somebody with a creative idea got to live out their fantasy in the Do-Re-Mi video. Just watching it made me confident that we--the teaching profession--can make a convincing case that life is no good without imagination. Even for investment bankers.

Bill Moyers recently interviewed Bill Black, the former regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. It's a sobering piece. Black makes it clear that the economic crisis was data-driven, that data being the precise measurable results of loosening constraints against excess risk, and permitting more creativity in leverage strategies and compensation packages.

Moyers: I was taken with your candor at the conference here in New York to hear you say that this crisis we're going through, this economic and financial meltdown is driven by fraud. What's your definition of fraud?

Black: Fraud is deceit. And the essence of fraud is, "I create trust in you, and then I betray that trust, and get you to give me something of value." And as a result, there's no more effective acid against trust than fraud, especially fraud by top elites, and that's what we have.

I keep thinking:  the most intelligent guys on the planet just led us into global economic collapse by inventing a clutch of economic and financial parlor tricks that made them very rich. Smart bankers who hustled 1580s on their SATs and came out of our best, most competitive universities went straight for the nation's fiduciary jugular. Experienced policy lions convinced colleagues to scrap commonsense regulations that had been protecting Americans for decades. Their sleight of hand maneuvers sucked money away from millions of ordinary, hard-working Americans, the ones who got unimpressive scores on their college boards--if they took them at all--and went to trade school, Regional State U or straight into the workforce. Boring folks in boring towns, who believed that paying down their ranch house mortgage was like tucking money into a sock for their kids' future. 

I also keep wondering what those financial-market whiz kids were like in first grade. Did they ever have to wait their turn in line for the merry-go-round? Were they ever in the Sparrows reading group, not yet proficient enough to be a Bluebird? Were they ever humbled by a math problem they couldn't understand? Did anyone ever explain the concept of "to whom much is given, much is expected?"

And--did they ever joyfully pretend to be a needle pulling thread?

That will bring us back to Nietzsche, who said: "Without music, life would be a mistake."

Image: jfrancis/flickr creative commons

Twenty-first Century Ball of Confusion

Segregation, determination
Demonstration, integration
Aggravation, humiliation
Obligation to our nation

Nobody's interested in learning...
But the teacher                

Ball of Confusion (That's What the World is Today)

The Temptations, 1970

 

Are you as heartily sick of the phrase 21st century learning as I am? Whole lot of righteous blog shoutin' going on--and I haven't seen anybody yield their personal intellectual or moral high ground when defining or explicating the concept.  Everyone seems to think they know what students "need" for the foreseeable and long-range future. Which is kind of scary, from my standpoint as classroom practitioner, generally the lowest person in the ed policy/decision-making food chain.

Where is this (increasingly bitter) argument going? Who's going to capture the minds and hearts of the public and the policymakers? More relevant to actual changes in real schools: where is the money flowing? Whose vision will get stable funding? Will it be:

Two-point Oh Cheerleaders

The Whole New Mind Crowd

The Same Old Mind We've Always Had Crowd

The 21st Century is Just More Cool Information in the Library Cynics

The Core: Knowledge, yes! Process, not so much! Projects, absolutely not!

Math and Science Will Lead Us Out of This Mess Believers

Stay-the-Course Accountability Hawks

Grumpy Skeptics with Ancient, Irrelevant Anecdotes

Diplomats Wanting Everyone to Stop Arguing and Contribute

Not that anyone cares what I think, particularly--but some of these arguments are not even remotely aimed at the vast swath of change ahead of us, or thoughtful consideration of preferable futures. They are, instead, focused on the next blog or winning some archaic battle over skills vs. knowledge.

What are the most critical, can't-wait issues that need to be reflected--immediately--in our national conception of what citizens (not just students) should know and be able to do in the 21st century?

I think the first issue is the learning gap between haves and have-nots. We have to stop pretending that "two-year adventure" teachers or stricter accountability measures or national standards or cutting-edge data analysis systems will narrow this incredibly dangerous and damaging societal chasm. Anyone who is paying attention to the economic meltdown at the moment--on a day when AIG needs another 30 billion, but GM is going bankrupt--can clearly see that our national priorities, including education, are not really designed to provide equal opportunity. It doesn't matter how many additional math courses are required in high schools, or whether teachers are truly capable of teaching critical thinking. If we can't offer that significant subset of our children an honest shot at a good education, we really are doomed, as a productive nation and theoretical world leader. Probably this puts resource allocation front and center in the 21st century learning arguments and nobody wants to go there. But there it is.  

The second big one is the fact that we are global citizens now, like it or not. And it's not about America "competing" in the flat world--we have already lost that battle to $15,000/year engineers in India. Whatever we decide is critical academic content for kids, it needs to include an awareness of the vast diversity of political, religious, economic and cultural thought in their shrinking world.  It's not about crushing the international competition. It's about living peacefully and responsibly on the small blue planet. (Headline on today's Newsweek: Radical Islam is a Fact of Life. How to Live With It.)

The third core need is  harnessing technological advances to the learning we decide is most important--as opposed to letting cool Web tools or technical capacities drive change in schools. It is now possible (perhaps even preferable) for a large chunk of formal learning to be completely student-directed, with (and sometimes without) expert, adult guidance. And yet we're still assuming that schools, classes, grade levels, report cards, teacher-as-knowledge-dispenser and the big yellow bus will go on forever.

Once they're marginally literate, the entire world is open to kids--truth and propaganda, knowledge and misinformation, masterworks and trash. We cannot control access or the flow of information, but we can shape the lenses that influence our children's perception. We can stop trying to get a Smartboard into every classroom, and focus on richer, deeper content and big ideas instead. We can make the deliberate choice to leave fast-paced tech tools out of early education, and limit their use with older children, giving greater value to developing community, creativity, judgment--and knowledge. Other nations have made such intentional choices, with good results.

We can also model dialogue. If decision-makers and opinion leaders aren't listening to each other in this 21st century conversation, there's little hope for the junior citizens on the monkey bars.

And be sure to check out the Temps' futuristic silver suits and matching shoes. So very 21st century.

Five Most Influential People in Education, 2008?

Got an e-mail from Robert Pondiscio at the invigorating Core Knowledge Blog requesting some thinking on  the five individuals who had the most impact on American education in 2008. He's asking a cross-section of writers and thinkers, and posting his poll results between Christmas and the beginning of the year. He let us know that we could submit our thoughts to him "on background" which made me laugh out loud. I guess that knowing what to say to remain politically viable is key right now, but nobody asks teachers if they want to submit comments anonymously. In fact, policy leaders seldom ask teachers much of anything (see #1, below).

I genuinely appreciate being asked, therefore--and the opportunity to muse about my choices. Here they are, in Letterman Reverse order:

#5) Jay Mathews ~ For traditional educational journalism, nobody wields a bigger syndicated pen than Mathews. Straddles the line between what the general public thinks about educational issues and what “professional” educators think. Willing to dialogue with people who think he’s wrong, and explore new trends, but confident in his opinions.

#4) Eduwonkette ~ the amazing thing about Eduwonkette is the fact that pretty much everyone in EdBlog World either loves her or deeply respects her work, or both. Her commenters are free to argue with her—and she will acknowledge her arguments’ shortcomings with grace and smarts. She makes statistics sing. Her occasional snarkiness is buttressed by solid scholarship and a finely-tuned sense of humor.

#3) Michelle Rhee ~ Poster Child for So Many Things. It must suck to be Michelle, carrying the weight of urban school reform around on her feisty shoulders, not to mention all the hopes and dreams of Teach for America corps members and alums. Seriously. She’s talented and brilliant, but has been put in a no-win position. Her “my way or the highway” stance has earned her more enemies than friends. And in education, you need friends.

#2) Linda Darling-Hammond ~ Diane Ravitch wrote today that the selection of Arne Duncan must be a relief to Darling-Hammond, and that’s probably true. In the world of academe, Darling-Hammond is high-profile, but fairly middle of the road. The fact that she became a lightning rod for anger and anxiety around competing schools of thought in contemporary education policy-making says something about her perceived (and ongoing) influence with the incoming administration. And also about what Americans believe might fix our ailing schools.

Millions of people who read the news now know her name. Unfortunately, some of what they “know” about Linda Darling-Hammond is third-hand and at best partially correct. She represents the battle over two enormous issues in the field--What is effective teaching? How do we make more good teachers?—and a third issue that transcends education: How should we as a nation in economic disaster feel about labor unions?

#1 EveryTeacher ~ I know this suggestion means I lose 5 vote-points in Pondiscio's poll,  but it really is the right answer to his question: Who had the greatest impact on education in 2008? The people who research, write and think about education believe they’re stimulating the most productive change, but the real action happens (or doesn’t) every day at what Checker Finn termed the “retail level.” The reason reforms stall or deliver minimal results is because the reformers do not work in real schools, or ask real teachers for feedback. (And sometimes, reformers' own unsuccessful teaching experience is written off to policy failures…)

The most exciting transformations in schools are happening through networks of practitioners—the best educational technology bloggers and their thousands of acolytes who are creating elegant tech solutions for schools and sharing them at little or no cost, for example. Or the National Writing Project, a teacher-led professional growth experience for language arts teachers. Or the Teacher Leaders Network, where a few hundred exemplary practitioners gather virtually to argue and muse about key policy issues from the perspective of the classroom.

Each year, teachers make the total difference—positive or negative—in the lives of 30 children, or 150 children. While policy leaders impact larger groups, the biggest educational effects on individual students (and nobody matters more than individual students) come, over time, from their teachers.

Image: o0o0xmods/morguefile

NOTE: Typepad assures us that the comment function will be fixed, soon. In the meantime, if you wish to comment, please e-mail your comments to me at: nflanagan@comcast.net

Worst Campaign Ever

I have to say that I am kind of pleased to be nominated for an EduBlog Award. Even though I freely admit it’s probably the wrong award. Thanks for the nomination! Vote for me! Or don’t, with good reason.

There are people who would fall over laughing at the thought of me being identified as a tech support specialist. I’ve never written a blog post with “Ten Tips” in the title. I don’t see myself as anywhere near the technological cutting edge.

I do like to write about how electronic technologies have impacted teacher thinking and practice (not so much)—and my last eight posts are live-blogs from a knockout 21st Century Learning conference I attended (and helped create) in Michigan last week.

No comprehensive expertise in Web 2.0 tools, however. And I have only the one life—no Second Life persona. Frankly, I’m a little timid about the prospect of starting over in a virtual reality, an anxiety that feels like wondering, in junior high, which table in the cafeteria is a safe bet for a marching band nerd like me.

So, thanks for recognizing the Teacher in a Strange Land. Most of the other nominees appear to be scattered around the globe, so that’s fun. And besides, Doug Johnson says none of these awards are scientific or influential, anyway. He may be absolutely right.

Vote or Don’t, right here. Think of it as my personal campaign for change.

Live-blogging the NME Conference, Day Two: Technology in Michigan

Lunch Keynote with Bruce Umpstead, Director of Technology for the Michigan Department of Education. Bruce is pretty wonderful—young, hip and thoughtful. We’re eating and using an audience response system—clickers—at the same time. I am also trying to blog. Talk about your multitasking. Watch for salad dressing on the keyboard.

Bruce opens with two interesting polling questions—True or False: Rules and regulations limit teachers.   Also: I let rules and regulations limit me. The teachers here believe that there are tons of rules, and other teachers are limited. But—they’re clear that rules and regulations don’t restrict them at all. In fact, of the 84 teachers choosing to respond only four believe that they, personally, are overwhelmingly constrained. Room full of mavericks.

Bruce tells us that this is what he expected—we see ourselves as unrestrained innovators. And then he says the Obvious Eternal Maxim about teachers and technology: It’s not about the technology that’s available for use—it’s about what teachers feel comfortable using. He shares a book he loves, “Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works.”  (ASCD) Lots of people writing that down. He shares nine strategies that actually impact instructional effectiveness—and how to use technology in those effecting those strategies.

He’s moving into Clay Shirkey land now—sharing “Ask 500”—and notes that he asked, well, 500 recently if on-line learning will overtake the traditional classroom. Yes, probably, the 500 said.

Bruce closes by noting that happiness is contagious—and he believes good practice (and using technology) is contagious as well. Bruce follows this up by donating free memberships and conference registrations for the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning (MACUL), a nice and totally appropriate perk. Very cool. The ten teachers who get this little treat leave happy.

 

Live-blogging the NME Conference: Innovation & Creativity

Mike Schmidt of Ford Motor Company leads the next plenary session. Mike—who was here last year and is back by popular demand—begins by telling us that we’re not in an information economy, in spite of  the fact that we’ve heard that roughly 6000 times. We’re in a Conceptual Economy, an idea so complex we don’t even know what to call it or how to fully explain it. He reminds us that he works for the auto industry— he knows whereof he speaks, when it comes to complexity.

Five trends (you know there had to be trends):

    *  Innovation (seeing what customers have not yet imagined but will instantly desire). Mike brings up Henry Ford’s observation that his customers would have asked for a faster horse, if asked what they wanted. Thinking about how we apply that to schooling in Michigan...

    * Entirely new markets.  Such as: genetic testing, social networking, pharmaceuticals, zero-emission vehicles, and on an on.

    * Flattening hierarchies. Everyone must be an innovator. Not just the boss. Every point of the compass, every team member.

    *  Moving from continuous improvement to continuous innovation. For example: Dell computers pioneered the “build your own computer on the phone” idea--a huge hit. But in two years, their competitors had caught up and even improved on Dell’s big idea.

    *   Need to address “intractable” issues. This dovetails with our morning message from Phil Power. Energy, health care, global financial systems, national security, social security--they're massive problems with no obvious solutions. If these problems really can’t be solved—well, they must be solved. Or addressed. It’s part mindset, part creativity and innovation. But the mindset comes first.

My question: Why is Mike here talking to teachers and not testifying before Congress? (Sorry, digressing.)

100-67-38-26-18: A formula for success in an outmoded economy

100 students enter HS

67 graduate

38 enroll in college

26 return to college over time

18 complete a degree within 6 years

This formula worked well for a time when only a small subset of the workforce needed to lead, innovate and be creative, and the rest just needed to be compliant and responsible, educated to a “basic” level.

If we focus only on the core academics--much more of the same--we’re replicating and intensifying our mistakes. We need to re-think everything: standards, content, pedagogy, structures, virtual and f2f worlds.

Favorite ironic slide: "Great! Another non-educator talking to us about the vision thing!"

Now, the nuts and bolts. How is the Henry Ford Academy doing this? What does it look like for, say, your average ninth grader? First, Schmidt debunks the myth that there is a dichotomy between innovation/creativity/21st century learning—and solid core content. These are NOT two separate things. Ford, being a big name, has attracted some high-profile partners for their work in developing the Academy (a charter school).

What drives this creativity? Innovation is the process used to take creative thoughts and add value. Innovation is a process that can be documented. It’s a mix of right and left brain, in and out of the box.

•      Deep and meaningful knowledge of the conditions of the world
•      Conscious understanding of their role in the world
•      Commitment to taking action

Schmidt tells us that all students at Stanford have to take a course called Design Boot Camp, employing some protocols and mental models of how to innovate. And now, the Henry Ford Academy is requiring a series of design and innovation courses for every student--as is their charter school in Chicago, Power House.

Course principles:

• Understand the problem
• Observe deeply
• Develop a point of view
• Visualize solutions
• Fashion quick, expendable prototypes
• Test the prototypes
• and iteration...

Some examples, from this year: Design a backpack for a specific person. Design a new, healthy, appealing menu item for our cafeteria. Design a way to collect stories that present our diversity. These are real assignments. For ninth graders. I take a quick look around at the faces of teachers in the audience—a combination of lit faces (yes! This is what I’m looking for!), amazement and bedazzlement, touches of skepticism (not at my school--or we're already doing these things) and jealousy. This is SO cool.

Mike brings three teachers at the Academy up for Q & A. These are the teachers who designed this required course on design and innovation. At an earlier breakout, they shared ideas on how to do this. First Q: How do we re-train “industrial model” teachers and make them “innovation model” teachers? Well, one teacher at a time. But…these teachers are tackling it, both in pre-service courses and in PD. They are developing prototypes for teacher learning. While they’re developing prototypes for curriculum. Building the plane as they’re flying. One teacher notes that teacher common prep time is essential. Otherwise, he says, absolutely none of this happens, even if it’s planned. Nodding heads.

Another good question about how we assess these kinds of learning activities. Henry Ford Academy students are subject to the same standardized tests as all MI students. But they also have some good partners in developing unique, world-class assessments, data gathering and evaluation. (More jealousy.)

A question about school spaces: the Henry Ford Academy is in a fabulous museum. This seems a non-negotiable—but you need to get kids out of the 900 square foot box and “school” mentality. But space matters. There's a big world out there, that kids will live in, once they leave the artificial environment of a school building. Question about art and music—why aren’t they on the schedule? Answer: art and music don’t have to be taught in the traditional, big-program ways. They are naturally integrate-able—and Henry Ford does have P.E., Art and music teachers.

There’s little awe and a touch of cynicism—but the session ends with a collective decision to send these teachers and Mike Schmidt to D.C. to save the auto industry. Their students can drive them.

Live-blogging the Network of Michigan Educators Conference

It’s 9:00 a.m., December 4 at the Lansing, Michigan Radisson—the first day of the annual Network of Michigan Educators conference. I’ll be live-blogging, posting sporadically over the two days of the conference. Normally, as secretary of the Network, I take minutes, which are archived in The Place Where Minutes Go to Languish, before they’re routinely approved at a meeting three months down the road. But the focus of this group (more about us, in a minute) has been increasingly on 21st century learning here in Michigan. What teachers can do to reshape the workforce and the economy in Failing Auto Industryland? In a week when the well-being of the state we love and call home depends on bailout plans submitted by Big Three execs (whom our president-elect called “tone deaf”), there are big questions looming like clouds over the room. So it seems like the right thing to be reporting out on what happens in these two days via blog.

The Network of Michigan Educators was founded in 2003, after a couple of earlier incarnations, attempts at forming an independent network of recognized educators. This is our sixth annual conference, and we are emerging as a productive network of exemplary practitioners, focused on both policy and practice. Our membership includes Michigan Teachers of the Year, National Board Certified Teachers, Milken winners, Presidential Math & Science awardees, Christa McAuliffe fellows as well as Principals and Superintendents of the Year at several levels. We have a data base of about 400 educators, 100 or so who are attending this two-day conference. Many of them had to negotiate or outright beg to be here—but it’s about the chance to network, to rub elbows with other teacher leaders and hang around with creative, vibrant and fun people. We always learn interesting things at the conference, but the #1 incentive to be here is the people.

Our opening keynoter—Philip Power, founder of the Center for Michigan takes the stage and opens by telling us that Michigan is in terrible crisis, the worst shape it’s ever been in. Our politics and industries are broken—the Center for Michigan (Power’s think-and-do tank) is a citizen’s movement to reshape the future of the state.  To those to whom much has been given, much more is to be expected, says Power. He is speaking personally, but I am thinking about how this relates to us, as accomplished educators. Great line: Thinking without doing is pointless, and (as the mayor of Detroit discovered) doing without thinking can get you into a lot of trouble.

In Lansing, legislators are re-arranging the deck chairs, worrying more about their egos and partisan influence than innovative thinking about productive change in Michigan. The Center for Michigan is not interested in creating a third party—the answer is not about accruing political power. What we need is a new competent, pragmatic, functional leadership paradigm—the radical center, getting rid of the winners-vs.-losers mindset and focusing on change.

Power asks us to write down one or two points on how we would change moderately successful schools to take them from B- to A. If there were no limits or restraints, how would build school models from scratch, optimizing effectiveness and innovation rather than just getting by and staying out of the headlines?

Power then shares a model—Community Conversations—for developing a shared vision. We will be doing these community conversations together this afternoon (yes!)—and compiling our own rich data base of productive ideas. Power calls this deliberative democracy—radically different from political and advocacy groups. In the political system we have right now, extreme positions on the left and right get amplified and ordinary citizens are marginalized, even alienated. The system does not represent us, teachers—foot soldiers in creating futures.

(Emotional temperature of the room: faces are sober, attentive. There is a sense that the room is full of concerned adults. A little different from most education conferences, where speakers are judged on the entertainment factor and whether they give the audience free stuff to use tomorrow in their classrooms. Even our fourteen interns are looking like they’re in the big time. Some of the people here don't want to take on responsibility for Michigan's problems and are wondering why we don't have an "education" speaker--but others have already pulled back their mental cameras, seeing the bigger picture.)

Power just used the phrase “flat, hot and highly competitive” to describe our future, and put responsibility on the shoulders of teachers in the room to be an active part of…what? Rescuing our state? Stopping a tide of failure? Creatively turning things around in schools? In the next two years, the Center for Michigan will host 10,000 citizen conversations, what they see as a critical mass of citizen input. They’re developing a strong bipartisan plan to move Michigan forward. NOTE: Michigan is not presently moving forward. Power just used the phrase transformation caucus—a group of policymakers who are willing to be pragmatic and non-political.

Now Power's speaking about dependency and entitlement. Michigan citizens are risk-averse. In other states, entrepreneurial spirit dominates. And worst of all for this crowd, Michigan citizens disrespect learning. How can we re-tool Michigan’s economy and climate when we’re not willing to invest in education?

The two best things about Michigan: our environmental beauty and abundant waters (note: we now rank dead last in environmental protection and investment)—and our (formerly) world-class universities and education systems  (we are now disinvesting in education). We are on the wrong, wrong, wrong track. We are at a hinge in our history—what kind of state will we have? What kind of state will our grandchildren have? Our students? We have the ability to turn the tide. It’s a moral imperative, in fact.

I find tears in my eyes as we watch a short video on the magic of Michigan. I’m a lifelong Michigan resident. The image that started the waterworks was a shot of Hitsville, U.S.A. in Detroit, with the Temptations. If there were ever a metaphor for finding the genius of Michigan’s people, it's Motown in the 1960s. A vibrant Michigan not known to the rest of the country, these days—a place of hope and creativity.

Power takes questions from the audience—they want to know about their own cities' futures, and they ask about higher education. How are our colleges and universities addressing job training for this new economy? Power says—hey, they don’t know how to do this either. They are not entrepreneurial. Janet Lavasseur, an NBCT from Portage asks the key question: How do we fit it? What can we do? We’ll get to have our own community conversations this afternoon, but Phil will collect our thoughts about how we would change things—he can write a column. But that’s a small thing. We can iterate, invent and re-iterate and re-invent…and on and on. We can start our own community conversations, the places where we live and teach. And we can form our own advisory groups—maybe we’ve already done that, with this Network.

There is a sense of this being a weighty moment—in fact, the Center calls this “Michigan’s Defining Moment”—rather than the usual conference rah-rah. Nobody’s wiping their eyes, no residual chuckles. In fact, the mood is serious. What can we do?

FOR AND BY TEACHERS

Like much of America, I have been living in Involuntary Policy World for the past few weeks. Faster and faster news cycles. The Policymaking Crisis du Jour (and lately, they’ve been actual crises, not fake media-generated disasters). How will we fix our problems? Who has ideas?

For those who live on-line and in crisis mode, a day spent in the company of children may not seem like an atmosphere for creative problem-solving. It might be hard to conceive how a group of worn-out teachers in comfortable shoes and paste-encrusted denim jumpers could gather in a school library at 3:35 and –without so much as fresh coffee, let alone a $1000/day professional trainer—solve real problems in education.

But they can, and do. One of the most promising trends in educational practice is the Professional Learning Community movement—the simple but powerful idea that small groups of teachers working collaboratively on focused issues of teaching and learning are best positioned to come up with effective solutions to address the thorniest dilemmas in their own schools.

Why haven’t teachers been doing this forever? Good question.

"In many schools across America, teachers enter their classrooms each morning only to close the door and teach with little to no peer interaction."

Teachers are isolated in an “egg crate” culture. If they have good ideas, there are few mechanisms for sharing them. And just about everybody in Policy World has a plan for how to fix their work and their schools.

My life passion is uncovering, defining and honoring effective teacher practice. I was very impressed by this new report from the Center for Teaching Quality—a report on the practice of developing professional learning communities, and what educational leaders can learn about creating the right policy supports to enhance good practice. Note: this usually runs in the opposite direction. The report was funded by Wachovia through their ASSET program in North Carolina, but the content--the teachers' voices--comes right out of the classroom.

Not only is the information useful, the format is way cool—it’s easy to use but high tech, it’s available free on-line and it includes podcasts of teachers telling it like it is. Try it.

Image: Diarechern/morguefile.com

STRAIGHT TECH EXPRESS

If I could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, I’d choose Anna Quindlen. And before we got through the salad course, I’d try to figure out how contemplate life and make connections as Quindlen does. Of course, it would also be great to write with her clarity and wit, and have a few million readers—but the thinking part is most important.

Quindlen begins her latest column for Newsweek by describing Abraham Lincoln as a “techie” who led the union to victory in part through clever and swift adoption of the latest technology—the telegraph—to speed communications about troop movements and battle strategies with his generals. Then she makes a quick, incisive jump to the 2008 presidential campaign and John McCain’s casual acknowledgement that he is “computer illiterate” and has never gone on line, e-mailed anyone or used a Blackberry.

Makes you wonder about how he will manage a global assault on terrorism, since 21^st century terrorism been conceived, initiated, organized and funded in cyberspace. Also makes you wonder about his formal education vision and plan. From the John McCain: Country First website:

• John McCain will target $500 million in current federal funds to build new virtual schools and support the development of online course offerings for students.

John McCain will allocate $250 million through a competitive grant program to support states that commit to expanding online education opportunities. States can use these funds to build virtual math and science academies to help expand the availability of AP Math, Science, and Computer Sciences courses.

John McCain Will Offer $250 Million For Digital Passport Scholarships. Low-income students will be eligible to receive up to $4,000 to enroll in an online course, SAT/ACT prep course, credit recovery or tutoring services offered by a virtual provider. Providers could range from other public schools, virtual charter schools, or home-school parents utilizing virtual schooling resources.

Do we have a clue here whether McCain knows what it means to “build new virtual schools,” or why he might want to think twice about offering a low-income high school student $4000 to enroll in an on-line credit recovery program –or why the tax-paying public should be deeply cautious about funding “tutoring services offered by virtual providers?” When McCain’s handlers do introduce him to Google, they might begin by typing in “term papers for sale.” Brave new world, indeed, where someone with enough money can buy credentials, using someone else’s knowledge—but hey! It’s on the internet!

This discussion is about our national predilection for valuing style, rhetoric and media-trivia over substance in policy creation. Howard Dean, John Kerry and Al Gore all demonstrated a certain amount of technology access and savvy, using web-based communication tools in some pretty smart ways. And look where it got them. Gore became a national punch line for describing his actual role in the creation of the internet—but Ted Stevens’ inane remarks about the internet being a “series of tubes” didn’t sink his current campaign (it’s the indictment which did that, evidently). And don’t forget fluent technology user Kwame Kilpatrick, recently jailed mayor of Detroit, whose 14,000 text messages became the primary evidence that he lied under oath, costing the city over $8 million in legal fees. It’s hard to link facility as an individual technology user to political leadership.

Is it possible to hire someone to be smart and up to date for you? There are plenty of school superintendents whose secretaries print out and even answer their e-mails; nobody blinks when there are layers of little people between Big Boss and the general public. People who wield power are often able to bypass minutiae of daily living; we assume that their authority and vision require concentration on important issues. Is it OK to have our policy leaders generating big ideas while minions handle the digital communication mechanics? I’m going to say no—because this is not about not knowing how to do techie things. It’s about understanding the vast and sweeping changes wrought by new technologies—both overestimating their merit and underestimating the consequences of global adoption.

If you’ve never used a search engine, or seen firsthand how to compare or manipulate information—if you have never participated in live web conferencing, or read the first 100 comments on just about any Daily Kos blog, your ideas about policy-making are severely limited, and one-dimensional. And if you think the internet and on-line courses are an unmitigated force for good, that’s just as dangerous as being fearful about engagement in the digital world. Having experience makes it possible to evaluate.

Anna Quindlen does not take John McCain to task for being old or for his conservative views. She simply says he’s “out of it.” From the standpoint of educational policy-making, any comments he makes in public about 21^st century learning have to be seen as repeating second-hand

Anna Quindlen image by the Nickster/Flickr Creative Commons;cable image/wax115/morguefile