~synthesis~

the time is now

This week, I had the great pleasure of meeting Prof. Deborah Ball (math teacher and Dean of UMichigan's School of Education) as she spoke to a group of math teachers (I crashed the party). She was there to talk about teaching math, but really, her presentation was about two issues that I think we ignore at our own peril - a national education approach vs. state/district, and that teaching is a professional discipline and not a just a job.

With respect to federalizing - IMO it is utterly moronic to have more than one school district in America. According to the 2002 census there are:

• 13,506 school district governments
• 178 state-dependent school systems
• 1,330 local-dependent school systems
• 1,196 education service agencies (agencies providing support services to public school systems)

That's 16,210 separate entities that govern this country's public school system! There's just no way a rational person can say that's a good thing. It turns out, neither the Constitution or any of the 27 Amendments ever mentions the word "education" - that's a mistake.

My thanks to Larry for the African proverb below - it is brilliant, has many messages, not the least of which is "sure if you had had a brain you would have done this ages ago, but since you didn't then, it's time to grow some and get it done now." President Obama and Secretary Duncan need to grow some (the Republicans will likely endorse this before the Democrats), argue that eliminating 16,210 agencies is a good thing, and that we need a 28th Amendment to the Constitution to mandate that public education be nationally funded and administered.

As Deborah pointed out, every country that does education well, does it as one - we can learn from that. Moreover it is morally abhorrent for the government to discriminate against a child's right to a great education just because of their zip code. <-- Where are our student-rights advocates?

The second (and best) part of Deborah's speech was about teaching as a profession, with specific skills, discipline and capabilities. Lay teachers (i.e. parents, etc.) do create learning experiences for their child, but they have nowhere near a professional approach, worse, they often do the wrong thing if their goal is to grasp the child's current understanding and help them learn more. (If the goal is to make the "teacher" feel good, then they're successful.)

Read at least the first 2-3 presentations on Deborah's website, and you will see that she talks at length about how a professional teacher is distinguished from a lay-teacher. She also answers the question "what persistently impedes progress?" by identifying five contributors:

1. Persisting with extinct arguments about skills versus conceptual understanding
2. Lack of a central or common curriculum
3. Persisting with outdated and refuted ideas about "teacher quality," especially with respect to content knowledge
4. Persisting with pendulum shifts from teacher-proofing to teachers, but rarely focusing on teachING
5. Persisting with approaches to teacher education that emphasize things other than practice (e.g. reflection, believes, propositional knowledge, experience)

We've talked about #2 already, the other four are all aspects of respecting teachers as professionals, treating them as such, measuring their ability to teach separately from domain knowledge, and providing them with the tools and mentorship and support to become more skilled teachers. During her lecture, she gave us all a bunch of tests that show how different it is to be a professional teacher vs. a lay-teacher. It was fantastic.

But do teachers really want to be professionals? Do they really want that obligation and expectation? I think they do, I think the bulk of teachers go into it because they are called to it. BUT - as Deborah points out, that doesn't mean they're going to be good at it. It's also not the case that teaching is more art than science. There are specific tools and techniques that effective teachers use that lay-teachers or ineffective teachers don't. This needs to change.

But achieving professionalism isn't just about the teacher, it's a systemic commitment. It must start with the school leaders and administrators providing an environment where teachING is valued and developed; it goes to teachers colleges who must focus on developing these skills from the outset and for accreditation; it goes to the unions who must support these initiatives to measure and compensate their members in terms of their professional ability vs. tenure. It goes to teachers who have to sign up to evolve their technique in order to improve their performance.

Note that I didn't say teachers should be accountable for student outcomes. I think that's the job of schools vs. individual teachers. BUT - teachers do need to be accountable for developing their craft. They need to be paid based on their ability (vs. tenure) in this regard.

If we are able to go from 16,210 to 1 and treat teachers as professionals and measure their proficiency accordingly, change will happen. Not planting the tree 20 years ago shouldn't stop us from planting it today.

achieve

I recently attended a presentation by Richard Barth (CEO of the KIPP Foundation) where he talked about the 82 KIPP schools they've built since 1995, and their vision and plans for the future. I've also had the pleasure of hanging out with two other leaders of schools in the last few months - Bill Kurtz of Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST), and Larry Rosenstock of High Tech High (HTH).

Each is different, but they share some traits. They almost always say "our," "we," or "us" instead of "my," "I," or "me." Their motivation is not personal recognition but rather the success of their students. Their outlook is more futuristic and forward-looking/inspiring than most, but they have the gift of blending that with operational effectiveness today. They have an unwavering commitment to one thing - graduating students who are on a path to personal greatness.

There's more to being a leader:

You need a great bench - are you grooming those who will follow you? (When I asked Richard Barth, he said he views this as one of KIPP's core competencies - interesting.) Are you creating those who will be recruited to lead other organizations? (I have seen this personally at High Tech High.) How effectively will your organization run when you're not there? (When I visited Denver School of Science and Technology and met the deputies (plural) it was pretty obvious.) We measure an organization by how well it performs when the leader leaves - while each of these individuals is truly great, I can say with conviction that if asked, they will care more about the legacy of the institution, and more the destiny of each graduate of the institution than their own "brand."

There is one final characteristic to great leadership - achievement.

Each of these gents has gotten it done.

But I also know none of them are satisfied - there are many more children to serve.

Is there more? Yes. Meet the people that work at KIPP, DSST and HTH and you'll see a perfect example of yet one more dimension of leadership - they are able to bring people to the table who are amazing, committed, brilliant and relentless about their students' destinies. They each feel empowered, supported and impelled to do great things. And you can meet each group and know which leader each works for. Each leader has a distinct personality and their people embrace it wholeheartedly.

It is this last that is most magical to me - the ability to attract great teachers and create this powerful ethos. Hiring a great leader is the most crucial factor in creating a successful school - now we just have to find them.

tribal self-preservation

Our DNA prioritizes self-preservation (fight/flight, procreation, etc.) - this is human-nature. "Self" goes pretty far - we see this behavior extend to the family unit, or even the community, and in the case of larger threats, to entire nations (witness 9-11). We also see this in less urgent situations like team sports and at work.

Does self-preservation ever lead to self-destruction?

At work, management sometimes bands together and starts listening more to themselves and ignoring the truth from the trenches even when the source is their own employees. This can lead to strategic myopia or the grasping of scarily flimsy straws. The team ends up feeding off of its cognitive dissonance vs. facing reality. This might be sustainable in the short term (possibly because they're riding their own inertia + euphoria), but it will fall down at some point.

Scott McLeod pointed to an article on the end of teacher sameness and loyalty, which predicts that teachers unions' hold will erode as teachers' roles get more varied (flaunting the unions' goal of a totally consistent and standard teaching remit); in time, they'll just fade away as fewer teachers "fit" their criteria of standardness.

IMO he is overlooking the fact that a lot of the power of unions actually comes from the employer, yep - the unions' power comes from the employer.

While It is true that great teachers create great students, it is more true that great teachers with crappy administrators create crappy schools. I've been to many schools in the last 18 months, and every school I've seen that is wonderful has an administrator/leader who relentlessly and passionately pursues the best for their students. Whenever the leader is bad/stodgy/status quo, the school is too.

David Warlick's post on common core standards scorns the work that the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers have published. He calls out this sentence:

These standards will be research and evidence-based, internationally benchmarked, aligned with college and work expectations and include rigorous content and skills.

Wow - that sounds really good, doesn't it? When David dug deeper, he found that the detail was an amalgam of existing, 20th century ideas. No new news at all.

The "employers" that wrote this appeared to prioritize self-preservation (getting reelected or reappointed) over the best for students. To get re-upped, they need the unions' (most powerful voting bloc) support. By writing a sound byte like the one above, and then putting the same old stuff in the fine print, they preserve themselves and their fellow tribe members, the unions.

The "tribe" seeks the appearance of driving change, but the reality of preserving the status quo.

Teach for America is small - 7,300 TFA teachers out of 6.8 million total - but their effect is huge. We all know the acronym, and teachers and unions are paying attention and changing behavior.

What's the TFA equivalent for Principles and Superintendents? Is it Charter schools? They are almost always the brainchild of a visionary, but the "tribe" scorns if not reviles them. Is it money? America spends more per student than most countries - it hasn't made a difference. It's not shame or guilt (that just strengthens their resolve).

What if Superintendents were paid exactly the same wage (in Massachusetts for example, they make $144k/year) as their lowest paid teacher but budgets had to stay the same or go down? Would that weed out those who were less committed? Would it create a massive gap in leadership? Would anyone notice?

advocacy

I had a brilliant conversation last night with two public school teachers. We talked about so many things, but invariably it came down to our education system and what can be done about it.

As I write this, I'm watching the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary tribute DVD, and Stevie Wonder is singing "Blowin' in the Wind" - interesting coincidence?

In Dylan's words:

There ain’t too much I can say about this song except that the answer is blowing in the wind. It ain’t in no book or movie or TV show or discussion group. Man, it’s in the wind—and it’s blowing in the wind. Too many of these hip people are telling me where the answer is but oh I won’t believe that. I still say it’s in the wind and just like a restless piece of paper it’s got to come down some ...But the only trouble is that no one picks up the answer when it comes down so not too many people get to see and know ...and then it flies away I still say that some of the biggest criminals are those that turn their heads away when they see wrong and know it’s wrong. I’m only 21 years old and I know that there’s been too many ...You people over 21, you’re older and smarter. --Bob Dylan, Sing Out! 1962

The song talks about oppression, being trodden upon, and injustice; most people connect that (as Stevie Wonder did) to civil rights, Vietnam, apartheid, Watergate, global starvation, etc., but as my two teachers affirmed, we forget the injustices that are befalling our students and teachers in schools across America. Who's singing about them?

One (recently moved to Washington State) said that she was forced to join the union - "they just stood over me and refused to leave until I signed the form." They wouldn't even let her take it home to read it. That kind of coercion can't be right? How is it that an organization founded in the spirit of advocacy for the downtrodden can be so oppressive?

Both (widely acknowledged by students and parents as great teachers) talked at length and with passion about how difficult it is to really do what's right in the classroom. They talked about how difficult it will be for them if they're accountable for individual student performance when they can't control the quality of the students they get, whether those students might just be resigned to life in a gang or joining the Army and dying in Iraq. In that scheme of things, how much does school really matter? How are they to be held accountable for that student's results? How are they to teach 10th grade English when the student's incoming reading proficiency is grade 3? Here's the worst one - if they do get singled out in any way (by the community, other outside agencies for some exceptional work), they're totally ostracized by their peer teachers!

No spirit of advocacy or camaraderie here at all. A clear sign of siege mentality. It's no wonder so many prefer the charter school model, and it's no wonder (though it is a crime) that unions violently oppose charters.

What would they change? First - we don't need the unions anymore - they're slowing us down; they're lowering our standing. Lawyers, doctors, other professionals don't have unions, the fact that we do makes us less - we are as important [I argue more important], and we should govern and represent ourselves appropriately. We also need to get rid of unions because tenure is killing our profession - it's the biggest impediment to change. [How often do you hear a teacher say that???]

Second - we need to rethink how principles are hired - it's really two jobs - the visionary (critical) and the operations manager (equally critical, but fundamentally different). It should be two people who work in partnership vs. one person who inevitably defaults to the operations side, causing us to lose out on any kind of evolved thinking, policy or practice. We lose out on an environment that is enriched and collaborative and passionate and challenging.

Third - we need to rationalize the structure - there is no clarity in the Constitution about where responsibility for Education lies; by default it goes to the States, but let's face it the Feds are pretty involved, and so are districts, etc. This is a mess. It's not about salaries (teachers don't teach for the money), it's about a coherent, equitable (every student in the country should have the same opportunity for an education), and consistent system that focuses first on honoring and doing the best we can for our children, and second but equally important, on helping prepare them for their futures. We need one system; we need a new Amendment.

Where are our true advocates? Who is really standing up for teachers like these two (and their peers around the world)?

To the presidents of the NEA, AFT, Secretary Arne Duncan and President Obama: mark these words by Dylan (now sung brilliantly by Tracy Chapman on the DVD):

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Dont stand in the doorway
Dont block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
Theres a battle outside
And it is ragin.
Itll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin.

define winning

When a good leader embarks on a journey, he knows why they're going, where they're going, and when they'll finish. The goals and outcomes are clear. Achieving them is a matter of execution and circumstance, but beginning with a clear statement and vision of what success looks like is crucial.

Seth Godin wrote about the problem with transoms being that it's too easy to throw stuff out there in the hopes that something sticks. He argues that without credibility you will likely struggle to make yourself heard above the fray, that companies could make it easier for people to share ideas with them, and who knows what could come of that?

It underscores idea that good leaders know their destination when they embark. If you want your idea to be heard, or you want to be open to new ideas, create the circumstances to ensure that you will get what you want. Don't just hope that good things will come.

But in our world, the focus all too often is on the symptoms and processes and not the underlying cause or the eventual outcome. Your odds of blundering into a good outcome this way are infinitesimal. This is why so many people feel like their company or government seems to relentlessly churn over the same ground every bloody day. There is never real progress, just "metrics that show progress." It really does suck to be us, and worse, we don't seem to be able to get past the suckiness.

Take education - what is the goal? Is it happy teachers? Beautiful schools? Quality curricula? More budget? Competition with other countries? Improved assessments? What about healthcare? What outcome do we want to create? Is it happier doctors? Cheaper medicine? One payer? Happier insurance companies? Universal access? Better hospitals? More innovation?

In both cases, we rudderless because there's no clarity about the end goal. Shouldn't education be about ensuring that every child is best-prepared to excel in whatever future they choose? Shouldn't healthcare be about creating the healthiest society possible? Why don't we measure effective education by what students are capable of doing after they graduate? Why don't we measure effective healthcare by how infrequently people need to go to the doctor?

Without clear guidance, a team flounders. Without clear guidance, a nation can flounder as well. Take the "war" in Afghanistan. What is success? Is it the eradication of the Taliban? I despise what they stand for, but that feels awfully like extermination, or genocide. The Taliban are a socio-political faction in Afghanistan. Others might not agree with their principles, but that doesn't mean anyone has the right to erase its member from existence. I know many people who are passionately opposed to President Obama and the Democratic Party, or Gordon Brown and the Labor Party in the UK, or whatever, but I don't see those opponents building a military machine to exterminate them. We are civilized ...aren't we??

Is it the eradication of Al Qaeda? Terrorism is the use of violence to provoke social change - this is a criminal act, requiring a police force not a military. You don't stop violence with violence - you feed it. It is exactly the reaction they are looking for, and exactly what they can then use to recruit more poor and desperate people to their cause. Racism is a form of terrorism, but Martin Luther King Jr. taught us that "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

If the goal in Afghanistan is to exterminate a political party, we should stop and ask ourselves what that says about us. If the goal is to eliminate terrorism, we should stop and ask ourselves how that work began in the United States of America with the (ongoing) elimination of terrorism against black (and other) people.

Frank Rich's OpEd in the NY Times compares (as many others have) Afghanistan to Vietnam - wondering if we will make this same mistake yet again? I see that the President is taking a step back to deliberate. It is true that Al Qaeda attacked America, but they are a band of criminals, not a sovereign nation.

I hope at a minimum the President's deliberation yields a clear statement of the meaning of "winning"; but I really hope he realizes that the only nation that has declared war thus far is America.

inversions

There was an article in the NY Times recently about a research study that found that students who study online outperform those that study in the classroom. But according to an email Prof. Kathy Gill at U Washington sent to a listserv, the causative factor was not on/off line, but time on task

So it wasn't the medium, it wasn't the message, it was the participation level that made the difference. It makes sense doesn't it? You could be in the most beautiful place with the most beautiful people looking at the most beautiful things, but if you weren't engaged, it was all for naught.

One thing this study does show is that listening to lectures online does work - students can and do pay attention; insight is conveyed, and gained.

Have you heard of Professor Glenn Platt at Miami University? He along with Prof. Maureen Lage invented the concept of "The Inverted Classroom." This is Einstein-like (so simple and yet no-one's ever thought of it before) brilliance.

From the students' point of view (and let's face it, they're the customers!), the lecture is the least interactive part of a learning experience; the assignments/homework are the most interactive.

So why not flip things around and make the lectures homework, and the assignments class work? The teachers should actively facilitate the interactive experience, and expect the students to "attend" the static part out of class.

The lecture is information with some insight (students sit, listen, take notes). The homework and assignments are where you're meant to internalize the concepts, be able to extend them to related areas, and demonstrate your knowledge by submitting solutions to problems you've been assigned (student reviews, infers, works, and documents understanding).

Think back to when you were doing homework - did you collaborate with your peers to solve a particularly difficult problem? If so, you had to arrange for an "out of class" meeting, to connect and then brainstorm, argue, share, and hopefully solve. There are many studies that show that the best way to know is to teach - getting together with your mates was the first step in teaching (or co-teaching), and understanding.

Platt/Lage published this idea nine years ago (in 2000) - shocking that this hasn't been more broadly explored.

Why hasn't it taken hold? IMO - there are three reasons for this:

1. Ability to record and disseminate lectures - requires video recording tools, a portal with video streaming services, the disk space and bandwidth to assure a good experience. This is being done in many places today - my traditional favorite is MIT Open Courseware, but Curtis Wong at Microsoft Research has created a rather ground-breaking project called Tuva - well worth a visit, especially if you share my appreciation for Richard Feynman. I don't think this is as expensive as everyone makes it out to be. Plus there are many organizations that would happily lend assistance to school systems that wished to implement this.
2. Capacity for all students to receive and consume lectures at home - this is more contentious. Throwing out the trust issue (kids won't do the work), which I believe is spurious and can be overcome, this is also the expensive part. Every student will require their own device to access lectures (could be as simple as a mobile phone), and the bandwidth to download them. Again - this is not a complex problem, but merely a costly one. I've talked about an adult equivalent of this here, I think the opportunity and impact is even greater for children.
3. Incumbents' willingness to change - there are four players involved (besides the students) and each is a big hairy issue. Are teachers and administrators willing to change? Are their unions open to encouraging this type of approach? Will parents (voters) agree to this idea? Does anyone have the cojones to pilot this for a whole school system?

Does it affect pedagogy? Yes. Does it require a new set of teaching skills? Hopefully not - my presumption is that teachers sought this scenario when they chose the profession. Does curriculum need to change? It could - for example, rather than streaming full 50-minute lectures, try ~10 minute "lecturelets" that are aggregated into lessons. One advantage of the inverted model is that the teacher and the lecturer don't have to be the same person. If your state had a standard curriculum, you could record the 4-5 best lecturers in your state, and then have that "best of the best" set of lectures be your streaming library; this library could be updated every two or three years to keep it fresh. The in-class teachers' role becomes more guide on the side.

The other advantage of this lecture/lecturelet model is that students can replay them to clarify understanding and review prior to exams. It allows them to learn in a much more self-directed way.

The issue with this model - will all students actually watch the lectures? No. But how is this different from today? I have observed a number of primary and secondary school classes, and can say with certainty that despite physically being in the room, not every student was really in the room. Moreover, not every student actually did their homework. Bet you're surprised to read that!

One other thing - when surveyed most teachers say that keeping students engaged while in the class is difficult. That doesn't surprise me given that most of the time is spent lecturing. This approach changes that - it puts the teacher in the role of actually working with the students to together internalize, understand and demonstrate the material. And I bet engaged students are more likely to watch lectures at home too.

I would change the approach to assignments - it's not about kids being head's down, answering questions, but rather about a discussion with problem solving, team exercises, lab work, etc. I'm not sure if assessments would need to change (they might), but I think the grading breakdown should - class participation and activity must now be at least 50% of the student's grade.

The data shows that time-on-task helps performance, that it is possible to learn from steaming lectures, and that keeping students engaged is a challenge for teachers. Inverted classrooms could be an answer.

I would really like to see a sizable school district or maybe a whole State give inverted classrooms a try. I think it has incredible potential, and might actually transform learning in a way we've never seen before. Perhaps this is what President Obama and Secretary Duncan should provoke with their Race to the Top program.

commodity U

In the words of Wayne Gretzky the best hockey player ever, "a good player skates to where the puck is, a great player skates to where the puck will be."

Reading Seth Godin's recent post about abundance and scarcity, there is no doubt that winning is about altering the model, redefining the game so that it favors your "home-field advantage" vs. anyone else's. History is littered with examples of things that were once special, expensive and sought after, but are now commodity. From air travel to televisions to mobile phones to personal computers, value diminishes as innovation takes over or as Seth put it, we move from scarcity to abundance.

The mark of a great organization is its ability to anticipate the next disruption (where the puck will be) and either be the authors of it, or redesign to obviate a competitive threat altogether. Organizations that sustain preeminence do so because they understand that being entrenched in their past successes is the surest path to future failure. It's not easy; they face phrases like "old school" or "back in the old days" or "we've done it that way forever" and have to overcome that tendency to stay in the past where it's comfortable.

The communication revolution has felled many seemingly iconic "incumbent" organizations and even entire industries. Perhaps they failed to grasp the implications of the democratization of publish, access, and more critically, connect. Sadly, some also fail to realize that the "hold" they might have on a market is wavering as the demand for their unique "thing" dissipates.

There is one industry that for the longest time has managed to subvert the forces of change, and stay true to the old ways - higher education. They've historically prioritized faculty over the students or rarely paid attention to teaching quality (how many professors did you have that had any training or any skill as teachers?). As long as they were the accreditation gatekeeper, and were able to attract funding from public and private sources, the students were secondary, if not tertiary (sorry). The recent economic times have changed things - most universities are now realizing that student "satisfaction" is critical, but only because their cash flow is now so significantly dependent on undergrad tuition - most of the other sources are diminishing.

But this isn't all, conventional universities are facing competition from three other sources:

1. Just like universities complain that high school students aren't prepared when they graduate, employers must also train graduates before they're ready to contribute - they don't all hit the ground running. Sure they want a trained candidate, but one who has proven skills delivering business value (not academic value). Candidates' other experiences (work, creative, community, teaming, etc.) are sometimes better indicators of work effectiveness. This puts less pressure on student to have to go to a branded school, and more focus on demonstrating their ability to be a valued employee.
2. Online players like  University of Phoenix or Kaplan University are really traditional educators in a new medium, but they're growing by leaps and bounds. They have a more streamlined economic model than traditional schools (less buildings, more bandwidth). Their professors also have to be better teachers given the online medium. Their diplomas are also respected by employers.
3. Have you ever heard of StraighterLine or P2PU? The former is a $99/month all-you-can-eat lectures to earn college credits, and the latter a community/peer learning facility by subject/class. These two organizations may not succeed right away, but IMO there's a "there" there. Sure it'll take another decade to gain a foothold, but I think StraighterLine or Peer2PeerU or similar entities will be the University of Phoenix of the 2010s.

Adding this up, universities are facing funding shortfalls, skeptical students (customers), disruptive business models, and a product that's been devalued in the marketplace. That sounds very much like they're being commoditized. Nobody believed the University of Phoenix would survive, but it has thrived - so much so that others (Kaplan) are copying its model. You even have institutions like Florida Virtual School, which is a very successful Kindergarten-Gr12 school. Once again we see scarcity shifting to abundance; those that try and hold on to the old ways may well be doomed, and those that adapt will survive.

I think this is a good thing; competitive spirits will surface, academia will raise it's head to try and figure out where the puck is going, and everyone (especially the students) will benefit.

dropstop

Eli Broad has put a ton of philanthropic energy and money into education; his foundation's site has some interesting statistics:

1. 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year, 44% of dropouts under 24 are jobless
2. Dropouts pay less taxes (costing the Feds potential revenue), and 65% of US convicts are dropouts
3. It costs $12,956 more per year to house an inmate ($22,600) than educate a student ($9,644)

Assuming dropouts only spend two years in jail over their adult lives, then each dropout costs the government $45,200 + $? in arrest/court costs + $? in lost tax revenue = $100k (guessing $5,000 in arrest/court + $50k in lost taxes). I think the actual costs are much higher, but let's be conservative and say it's just $100,000 per dropout over their lifetime.

This means every year, the American government (American taxpayer actually) takes on an increased burden of $78 billion dollars just from the 65% of dropouts who will become convicts. Just for the dropouts since the year 2000, this burden over their lives is over $700 billion. To put that in context, the annual operating budget for education is $450 billion, which serves almost 50 million students. [See update below.] I couldn't find the data I wanted, but still believe that the burden on society is significant enough to warrant the investment below. 

Why do students drop out of high school? The three most frequently-cited reasons are: family issues ~25% (pregnancy or becoming a parent), employment ~32% (couldn't combine school and work, or needed to get a job), and motivation ~69% (didn't care, no-one pushed them). How about this: two thirds said that they would have tried harder if more was expected from them (i.e. someone cared).

The National Dropout Prevention Center proposes fifteen strategies for improving graduation rates (about twelve too many); if I were to pick three, besides the obvious ones (centralization and teacher improvement), my third pick would be mentorship, or as I proposed, "minternships."

I recall hearing about a Big Brothers Big Sisters study that said effective mentorship requires a minimum 18 month commitment; less can actually do more harm than good. The quality of the mentor is of course also a critical factor. But if you're good and you stick around, the results are strong and positive - the mentee is more likely to complete and graduate school, etc.

Is there a common thread among the three main reasons kids drop out? They're not being counseled well about family planning, birth control, safe sex, etc.; there are no clear options for financial support for children in high school; there's no-one who believes in them, encourages them, and provides them with a model of how to achieve gainful employment. There doesn't seem to be one, but I think we can create it :-).

Let's build a formalized mentorship program (using the Teach for America concept, we could call it "Reach for Americans") where students are able to receive not just counseling and support, but also a stipend (for community service or internships that pays enough to prevent the need to get a job). The mentorship must focus on both family planning/sex ed and of course motivation, support and inspiration to stay in school, graduate and succeed. Let's not make Reach for Americans (or whatever it'd be called) a .org - let's instead make it a .gov, that way it's not beholden to fund-raising, and students can count on the counselors being there always.

The program should begin early - say at age 8, and continue through high school graduation - this would get expensive (but I bet we'd not only improve graduation rates, but also student performance, and hopefully in a generation be able to claim that families were elevating themselves out of poverty because their children were graduating high school (potentially going on to community college or university), and earning a family wage. This organization might also become a student advocacy group, and argue for student rights across the board, but particularly in low-income communities.

The business case is clear, the outcomes could be significant - I think we should pick a state and give it a try.

UPDATE - I realize (thank you everyone for your emails and comments!) that I made a false assumption above - 65% of criminals are dropouts, not 65% of dropouts are criminals. I will correct this this evening.

Resourceful, Fearless, Passionate

Education in America is one of the most maligned institutions around. Everyone believes they have the silver bullet that will fix education once and for all. Off the top of my head and in no particular order, here are ten panaceas (by the way - how can "panacea" have a plural form??):

1. Class size
2. 21st century skills
3. STEM
4. Constructivism
5. Desegregation
6. Standards
7. Instructivism
8. Integrated curriculum
9. 1:1 laptops
10. Increased budgets

The thing Edu-America has done most consistently in the last century is wholeheartedly embrace fads - but like diet cures, with a dismal success rate. I couldn't come up with one example of when any of these has worked over time (sustained success) and at scale. Can you? As with diets, there is no miracle pill that takes no effort, has no side effects and maintains ideal and guilt-free health and fitness.

Ideas like "21st Century learning" freak me out. The nature of life is that things change - today's internet is yesterday's library or bookstore; today's cell phone is yesterday's letter (the kind you mail); today's podcast is yesterday's correspondence course... The only truth is that tomorrow will not be like yesterday. What "21st century" skill would not have been useful in the 18th century when this country was formed?

Mainstream schools today seem like the worst kind of sweatshops. If anyone in the education system needed a union, it's the students. When you find a school whose leadership is the strongest advocate for the students, you find a pretty good place to learn. They don't come at it with isms - that's not the path to greatness.

So what should a student be? How can school contribute to the graduate being more than the freshman?

If I had a child there are three things I'd want them to be - resourceful (find things, learn things, get things done), fearless (never let someone else's lack of imagination or inhibition stop you), and passionate (care about things, and share your ideas). Above these three, I'd want them to be filled with joy.

Shouldn't a school be able to contribute to this, be the place where creativity and exploration happen? Don't you want to be these three things as well?

Deciding what change a school system needs doesn't IMHO begin with standards or curricula or tests (and certainly not isms) - it begins by first describing what we want ourselves to be - making that our mission statement and building something that manifests that destiny. If you start with, say "we need more nerds," you're destined to fail as we've proven time and time again.

forests and trees

If you're in a position of power, chances are you want to hang on to it. If you're in a position of power and you don't have to do a lot stay there, you like it even more; and if you've had it this way for years, complacency has set in as well. What's your natural reaction if someone or something challenges that power? Do you welcome change or do you hunker down, decry it, and marshal your resources to defend because you believe the status quo is righteous and "they" are just plain wrong? 

Despite all resistance, there are things beyond your control - some examples that come to mind include Open Source to Microsoft; bad carbs and saturated fats to fast food restaurants; cell phones in children's hands to teachers, etc. In the first case, the company still rails against their competition but now demonstrates interoperability and even distributes open source software of its own. In the second case, most fast food companies have seen the future and shifted to healthier options.

In the third case, most schools, teachers and unions continue to passionately resist change; they are adamant about the "right" way to learn, closing the door to Google, Wikipedia, the Internet, cell phones, etc.

Dean Shareski wrote a great blog calling out schools that on the one hand ask for technology in the classroom, but then prevent students from bringing their own tech to school because it would erode "the traditional education model." David Warlick wrote teacher shock about students who aren't being taught about the world around them.  Chris Lehmann also wrote a great post about a presentation to the FCC on the role of teachers in the new world of teaching.

A couple of months ago, I wrote that teachers and schools are the gatekeepers to information and accreditation, but it is changing rapidly - their hold on information is all but gone, and the value of their accreditation is diminishing as quality and relevance wane. Despite this, the incumbents remain vigilant in their fight to "control" the classroom in the name of true learning and status quo.

Dean, David and Chris are heroically pushing their fellow educators to shirk the past and embrace technology as an opportunity to transform education from the inside vs. resist and be done unto by external forces. In the business world, an apt metaphor is: "if someone's going to eat your lunch, it may as well be you, even if you have to cannibalize an existing revenue stream to do it."

The "Resistance" has powerful weapons - tenure, the political power of unions, a massive and highly distributed bureaucracy, and low self-esteem resulting from being at siege for so long. Aikido masters teach their students to blend with their opponents' motion and redirect the force to a more advantageous outcome. I think the Education community can do the same.

Blend

I'd argue for consistency and consolidation of administration across the country. Imagine how much money and energy it would save if there was one education standard mapped to one set of curriculum? The lesson plans should be at the discretion of schools and teachers, but should incorporate the use of advanced concepts like computers, calculators and cell phones - this is their biggest compromise, but look what they get in return (one standard, one curriculum).

Redirect

Take all the savings from the rationalization and invest it in increased pay and benefits for teachers.

Gain Advantageous Outcome

Improve and equalize the education service provided to every student in the country, grow teacher pay, hopefully improve student outcomes, do it without increasing the budget for education in the country, look like heroes, and get paid.

Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? I doubt it - this is a classic case where the Resistance is stuck in the trees and can't see the forest.

nerd-up!

There's a conversation happening between luminaries in American industry, major players in the American philanthropic scene, leaders in the American education system, and some very senior and "in-the-know" people in the state and federal governments to figure out ways to grow the number of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)-skilled graduates in the United States. Specifically, there aren't enough students in elementary and high school with an interest in STEM and there aren't enough university graduates in STEM to fill current and future open positions.

Let me start by saying that I don't believe in isolating any one (or one set of) disciplines - good learning must be holistic and serve the complete child. I can't learn science well and sacrifice communications skills (reading, writing, speaking, etc.); I can't learn engineering well and sacrifice creativity (music, sculpting, painting, etc.); I can't learn any STEM discipline without a good (really good) sense of art and crafts (carpentry, etc.).

Making this about one and not the other creates a bifurcation of the education system that is wrong and unfair. My good friend Larry has decided he'll focus his schools on STEAM for this very reason (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) - I could agree more + I love the idea of steAm:-)!!!

How about this:

Overarching goal: every student must achieve their greatest academic potential.

STEM-focused goal: America will double the number of American-educated, successful STEM employees by 2020.

Situation:

• The forecast for STEM jobs in ten years is almost double the current population of STEM employees (i.e. at least 80% growth in jobs in 10 years)
• American junior and high school students drop out of STEM disciplines at alarming rates
• Graduates in general are weak in STEM basics irrespective of major
• Students are daunted by the sciences, and aren't captivated by how interesting (and well-paid) jobs in the sciences can be; it's also noteworthy that students normally decide (explicitly or implicitly) an interest in STEM before they reach grade 7
• Employers have done an abysmal job of engaging students and compelling them with opportunities in their organizations
• Philanthropy alone cannot sustain any major social (or other) change (it's incredible at sparking things, but it's not forever)
• In the rest of the world, families and institutions value STEM graduates tremendously; students are encouraged by their peers, families, employers, etc. to get in that game, and get some of that coin; and the results in these countries (like Korea for example) are outstanding, and at a lower cost-per-student than America

Truths:

• Employers are motivated by the following: making money, hiring the best talent, looking good (image) - let's not waste time on any other incentives - help them with these three and you win, everything else is crap
• Students are motivated by the following: getting laid, making money, looking good - let's not waste time on any other incentives - help them with these three and you win - everything else is crap
• Parents are motivated by the following: getting the kids gainfully-employed, becoming burden-free empty-nesters, being financially solvent - ibid
• Teachers & Administrators are motivated by the following: being employed, teaching students, preserving status quo - ibid
• Governments are motivated by the following: getting elected, being perceived as doing good, getting re-elected - ibid

If we want all schools to improve their curriculum and performance, the most sustainable way to do this, is to get the parents (voters) to demand it and expect it. If you want scale and sustainability, this is the ONLY way to do it. If you can achieve this, the governing bodies who seek reelection will find a way to make it happen, and I argue, make it happen without additional funds.

This is a marketing problem - if the demand is created, and elected stakeholders start feeling it from their constituents, outcomes will occur.

Some might think this trivializes the problem, but I've never heard of organized ingenuity (seems like an oxymoron), or broad, sustained, grassroots change (outside of declarations of war or the like) happening just because one person (irrespective of how charismatic, powerful or visible they are) said it should.

The real goal is to make STEM sexy (dare I say: "STEAMy" = Science + Technology + Engineering + Art + Math = yeah baby!).

Sustained, societal change requires a broad from the bottom-up movement that changes culture and expectations.

Solution:

I think we need to create a whole new concept and movement in America - I'm calling it "MInternship" - a combination of mentoring and internships.

Today, most American STEM firms get R&D tax credits for doing all that nerd stuff. I want to change the rule for getting the tax credits. From now on (beginning with the 2010 tax year), in order to qualify for any R&D tax credits, 100% of your R&D staff must mentor a student in grades 6-12. Each mentee must also intern in your organization for at least one week during the school year (not in one go, plus it counts as community service for the student), and optionally for an additional two weeks during the summer break - paid experience.

But please let's not make this exclusive to STEM - why not open this up to all industries - if you want your R&D or operating tax credits, this is the new cost of doing business - involve the future in the present.

It is an amazing opportunity for employers to reach out, identify and nurture stars, eventually hire them, and of course get those tax credits. It's huge for students because they get to be engaged in reality, identify with people who are doing great work, learn, and realize that this could be their vocation.

We marry this with a marketing campaign where we showcase and applaud nerds (Iron Man and Hulk are two pretty cool nerds, and both got laid (well Hulk almost did)!), with creative uses of media - targeting both parents and students. This campaign is a myth-busters campaign - we want everyone to know that nerd-smarts are absolutely attainable irrespective of gender, demographics, whatever; and we especially want everyone to know that nerds get paid really well, and better on average than other professions.

This marketing campaign has to show parents how important it is for them to focus on their children's academic time as an investment in independence, and how a great education is the key to being a successful empty-nester.

Result:

It will take some time - say 5-6 years, but if done right, this is a sustained and totally scalable approach to growing the American nerd (and otherwise) population - by creating a desire in the American ethos for a better education that is more closely connected to employment. We are also addressing the needs of each of the audiences identified above.

The problem with it is that it doesn't fit well with bureaucrats and politicians because it doesn't demonstrate direct and substantive results in the first year. (Though I'd challenge you to name five government programs that have.) But the key is to find answers that will be pervasive and live for a long time.

It will also be daunting because it's whacky, there were no committees formed, we didn't hire expensive consultants, and there were no 500-page PowerPoint presentations developed that demonstrated blah, blah, blah.

Let's hope that that group of people above will come to a dramatic and divergent conclusion, rather than live up to a most primo nerd (Einstein)'s definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

talent pools

If more money doesn't ensure a better education, what does?

A few days ago, J.R. sent me a link to an excellent presentation by Sir Ken Robinson about how today's schools kill creativity. J.R. also shared a recent post by Peter Bregman which advocates that you aren't pushing hard enough if your path to success isn't marked with failures. Then Kay (20 year public education veteran) sent me an email that illuminated a dynamic in education and health care that I had not considered before:

Quality

Prior to the 1960s, the American workforce excluded more people than it included, cutting off access to a huge, talent-laden pool of workers. During this time, most women were limited to three professions - nursing, teaching and administrative work. Thus limited, fully half our population's best and brightest devoted their energy and passion to these three fields. Is it any wonder that wellness improved, schools (and students) in this country were among the best in the world, and companies were well-run?

Imagine that - society actually benefited from discrimination. How ironic!

Since there were more candidates than jobs, employers could hire the cream of the crop at "competitive" rates. Again - how lucky for education, health care, etc.!

Things changed in the 1960s - attitudes began to shift and opportunities began to grow. When presented with alternatives, once again the most talented of this community left their present and moved on to their future; this time to the detriment of education, health care, and business administration.

Creativity

Like most people, I believe that teachers are the most critical factor in student success.

Standardized curriculum/testing, prioritizing literacy and numeracy, and a lot of the challenges that Sir Ken identified have been around a long time, but until recently the teachers were so good, they overcame these issues and the students learned regardless. What's more, because of their confidence and ability, teachers were also comfortable pushing limits, allowing their students to push limits, and together achieve great learning, knowing that mistakes and failures pave the way to insight.

In essence, the system wasn't great prior to the 1960s, but our successes happened in spite of this, and only because the teachers were good enough to overcome their environment. The proof of this is that there are brilliant classrooms and (in very few cases) schools today, but these teachers are very much in the minority among their peers.

If you build it...

If you ask a bureaucrat, he'll say we need to recruit back all these great teachers at an incremental cost of $billions. But it is rare in a large system (education, health care, mega-corporations, etc.) that adding more money creates better results. We need a different approach:

We must begin by ensuring that the outcomes of learning (the "what") are clear and explicit. But we leave it up to the teachers to determine how to accomplish these goals. We do this by federalizing (thus erasing a massively redundant bureaucracy), and eliminating the need for unions (who are generally resistant to change). By giving teachers and schools ownership over the "how", we can eliminate even more bureaucrats, and make the gig that much more attractive. The result (despite increasing teacher salaries) should be a significant reduction in the education budget, and a more appealing place to work.

We attract great people by recognizing that teaching is not a job, but a profession. We acknowledge that professionals seek the creative and intellectual freedom to do great things and make powerful differences.

We can make teaching a real destination, one that draws in the best of our society by giving them the room to grow.

necessity and invention

I've been reading a lot about increased funding and expanded budgets for "innovation" in education lately. America spends a lot of money (among the highest) per student on public education; most people are unsatisfied with the results, and yet the prevailing strategy to improve things is to throw more money at the same system.

The Numbers:

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the 2005-2006 (the most complete data I could find) school year for public K-12 schools:

1. Total number of students: 49,113,000
2. Total number of teachers: 3,143,000
3. Spending per pupil: $9,154
4. Total operating budget: $449.6billion
   • Instruction $274.2billion - 60.98%
   • Support Services $157.1billion - 34.95%
   • Food $17.3billion - 3.84%
   • Enterprise Operations $1.0billion - 0.23%
5. Total budget: $528.7billion (#4 + $7.4b other current expenses, $57.4b capital outlays, $14.4b interest on loans)

ASIDE: According to the US Census Bureau's Public Education Finances report, of the $274.2b for Instruction, 89.8% or $246.2b goes towards teacher salaries and benefits ($78,334 per teacher). That's a pretty good wage these days, but as I've said before, I believe that teachers should be better-paid, and respected as peers to doctors, lawyers and engineers. Regarding this last point, I wonder then if it's time for teachers to secede from their unions? Most lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc. are not union members; I wonder if being union members creates the impression of not being on an equal footing with those professions, and actually diminishes teachers?

I'm not judging whether the level of funding above is too much or too little for America. Let's say it's just right. Now combine this with the graph to the left, and it's pretty clear that the budget is big, and has and continues to grow very rapidly.

I don't know enough about the public sector, but in business when growth like this occurs, it is likely that bad habits form. People get lazy, money is not spent wisely, and consultants get hired to do what employees should be doing, or to provide management with a CYA safety net. Management gets in the rut of preserving the status quo/gravy train. Most organizations that survive past the rapid growth phase have to go back to the drawing board and rethink their whole business. They must develop a strategy re-defining success, specifying new resource allocation models, and advocating entirely new business processes and approaches in order to achieve their goals.

With the kind of funding growth education has enjoyed, I wonder if the administrators have simply been adding more $$ to existing line items - taking the easy way out?

Have they taken the time to form a strategy that establishes where the puck will be, enumerates and prioritizes their current resources, and defines a plan for how to get there? If the current budget won't get to the puck, they should first look inward, make trade-offs, and then demonstrate exactly how additional funding results in specific outcomes that other stakeholders want and would fund.

I've written before about how organizations can get waylaid by their own success, and the effect of size on performance. While both blogs were about commercial companies, I wonder if some of the same principles might apply to education?

At one time, the American education system was among the best in the world, and it appears that the formula from that era remains in force today despite many changes to the world around us. Why is that? Despite all the lip service paid to edu-evolution, except for very small pockets, the system appears to be just the same as it was two or three generations ago. It feels like Education is trying as hard as it can to live up to this Peter Drucker quote.

Can education achieve innovation when increased funding is not a part of the picture? If necessity is the mother of invention, is it possible that the constant increases in funding have resulted in precisely the wrong (zero-innovation) outcome?

Humans tend to think most creatively when their backs are against the wall, and they have to adapt or die. If put in that situation, would the American education system find a completely new and innovative way to achieve its goals? I think it's possible.

It takes leadership to achieve this, but I don't see the present administration (President Obama or Secretary Duncan) taking this on. We remain in desperate need of an education sensei to lead us.

tinkering

My good friend Larry pointed me to a fantastic presentation by John Seely Brown on tinkering. The ten minutes you invest in listening to John is well worth it.

Where to begin. First - I think back to times I'd spend with my father, fixing his car, or an appliance, or building something (he is a tinkerer:-)), and how I osmotically learned about machinery or design, and most importantly, how I learned to decompose a problem and then solve it bit by bit until it was complete.

This approach also taught me to be bold. I can't overstate this - when you are working on a problem beside someone whom you trust and who knows more, you are more likely to try things because you know s/he is there to help/rescue/fix you if something goes wrong. When you're learning alone or in a typical classroom setting this type of "support" might not be available for two reasons - creativity and exploration is generally discouraged (a crime IMO), and often the teacher or tutor is dealing with too many students to actually be there at the precise time the one child is at the point of trying something.

As I've gotten older, I'm emboldened (because I learned how to "fix on the fly") to the point where I can now explore, experiment and create, and actually enjoy it! This is how we will build the leaders of tomorrow, by giving them the ability and confidence to do things, to try things, and to seek the joy of learning, and sharing.

"Playing with Knowledge"

I love this phrase. The idea of create, reflect and share is very familiar. About a month ago, this same "Larry" and I had breakfast together and talked about many things, including the failure of standards in learning. During that conversation, he described his view of learning - observation, reflection, documentation, exhibition. I know that Larry and John are two peas in a pod on this:)! The share/exhibition aspect can't be overlooked, whether it is in a gallery, a school hallway, or teaching another student (as John suggests), learning is cemented during this process - yet, the education system today rarely offers students this opportunity, favoring regurgitation instead (another crime IMO).

This process of continuous learning and teaching is crucial. When Einstein (thanks Larry:)) spoke these words, he was talking about discovery, which I see as implicit and tied into the learning process above, and brought to life through exhibition.

Exhibition has another aspect - it requires creation - often physical and tangible creation. The creation process enables us to evolve to not just a way of learning and teaching, but also a way of improving. When work in progress is shared (as my father did with me), we were both able to improve it, I as the observer might have had an idea that my father as constructor didn't and after some discussion and experimentation, who knows, maybe together, we created something better, just because we shared.

But we did more than share, we critiqued each others efforts as well, not maliciously or judgmentally, but productively. Building the skill to do that and having the strength to accept it is so fundamental in school, because let's face it, it's certainly there (positive and negative) in real life.

I wish our public school system were bold enough to embrace this approach. The possibilities for its graduates would be limitless.

This blog is one way in which I tinker - it results from my observations of the world; how I reflect (and synthesize) what I see; an articulation; and then my favorite part - the exhibition, where when shared, I have the pleasure of learning from others (you) through their (your) willingness to share.

Thank you.

prodding the prodders

Education is a seemingly complex beast. Everyone knows it needs to be great, there's little argument on this point. Everyone knows that this is an investment with a sure return, there's also little argument on this point. America spends among the most per student in the world, yet student performance is declining there is no argument on this. Is it really that complex - everyone has these intricate views on how to affect change - are they right? Who (beside politicians and bloggers) complains the most about declining academic performance?

It's exactly the people that have caused this problem - our very own employers, colleges and universities! How? By valuing something that no longer has value.

The original business case for an education was simple - you needed one to earn a living. The nature of your living was largely determined by the person that taught you (the master taught the apprentice who worked beside the master and then eventually took over). As the world evolved, the path to employment shifted from proficiency in a craft to an accreditation of core skills. In America that's called a High School Diploma. It's important to note that the value of this "ticket" is not set by the primary/secondary school system, but rather the gatekeepers that guard a student's next steps - employers and post-secondary schools.

One of the reasons parents send their kids to school (and willingly pay the taxes) is because it is the one step that they believe will help their children create a better life, that education is the path towards prosperity. They believe this because it is how they got to where they are, or how they saw others get to where they wish their children to be. They also want their children to be best-equipped to survive and thrive no matter what life or the world throws at them.

Employers have decided a high school diploma is critical, and will prefer candidates that have one. Colleges and universities have decided to accept students based on their high school (plus related standardized test) performance and will rarely if ever take a candidate who doesn't have one.

But. Colleges and universities complain that they have to spend millions (if not billions) to remediate students because secondary schools are not adequately preparing them for tertiary schools. Employers say the same thing - that a significant percentage of high schools students are poorly prepared to enter the workforce. Together both bemoan that fact that even when students have some basic skills, they aren't able to function well in a team setting, deal with complexity and ambiguity, communicate effectively, etc.

ASIDE:

There are schools that can and do prepare their students for the real world, and their graduates are eagerly sought out.

My two favorites - High Tech High (HTH) and Seattle Girl's School (SGS) are among these. Ask Larry Rosenstock at HTH and he will tell you this - creating a great engineer or scientist absolutely doesn't imply that you must sublimate the arts and humanities. To the contrary - it requires that you treat students like one, let them behave like one, and compel them by how much fun it is to be one. To do that, you must immerse them in the sciences and the arts and the humanities - why - because that's what real people are. You accomplish this with an integrated, project-based approach to teaching, where students are committed, respected, engaged, and critical participants in the process. Ask Marja Brandon at SGS and she'll say the same thing.

Graduates of HTH or SGS are "ideal" for colleges, universities and employers alike - they will and do run after them. Their diplomas are not generic.

The change agent - just say "no":

I've argued in the past that we must federalize education, that students are the customer, that we measure the wrong things. I must amend one of these - students are not the customer - they are the fodder. The real customers are colleges, universities and employers. Sadly they are not using their power wisely or effectively.

What if the Chamber of Commerce and Association of American Colleges and Universities decided not to accept high school diplomas anymore? What if they only employed or accepted students from schools they felt did a great job of educating, and not from all schools? Would parents happily agree to fund schools via taxes knowing that it wasn't buying their children enough?

We could start with America's largest employers - the Federal Government (including Defense), Wal Mart and McDonalds. That's only three CEOs (well, two CEOs & a President) to convince.

What if they issued high schools a once-cyle (4 years - grades 9-12) ultimatum? If the incoming grade 9 class in the high school system was not transformed this year (9-10 in Y2, 9-11 in Y3, and 9-12 in Y4), they would cease to accept a high school diploma'ed candidates. This would create an automatic ripple effect to elementary and middle schools.

Faced with dramatic cuts in funding, would schools feel the impetus to change and follow a better path? Money is a powerful catalyst. Just look at how "open" to compromise and negotiations management, partners, dealers and unions alike were when faced with the reality of GM/Chrysler bankruptcy?

The education system is not feeling similar pressure right now. We need it to. Let's all rally the biggest employers in our countries, states and towns and have the leaders of those three or four organizations help us create the change we need.

standards-schmandards

A great friend and brilliant educator recently shared this frame for learning with me - it is about observation, reflection, documentation, and exhibition. This is powerful. It fits well with the beginnings of learning, where each master taught their student according to that child’s unique shape, ability and needs. He or she realized that their pupil would eventually replace them as master, and acted and taught accordingly. Each apprentice paid attention, was engaged and focused, because this was the real world, and they easily saw themselves as adults doing this work. Learning happened.

In time, the shape of learning "evolved" to the point where “schools” were built. They may have begun teaching religion or language, but they soon expanded to contain many masters, each tasked with creating proficiency in their particular subject. As schools grew, overseers defined “a complete education,” and students were required to complete a rigorous and structured process, accomplish a specified result, and then “credentialed” to move forward – either to further education, or the workplace.

This new shape of learning was deemed “better” because it allowed teachers to reach many students at once, and it freed the “value creators” (the original masters) to focus on their work without the "distraction" of apprentices. In time, the politically-anointed “overseers” of the these schools identified “core” skills that could be "extracted" from original subjects, and taught independently of any craft or discipline (carpentry, medicine, farming, etc.). These core skills, literacy and numeracy (which in a bizarre fit of illiteracy are referred to as the "3 Rs"), were deemed of greater importance to educational success (both institutional and personal) than proficiency in a given craft.

The present day education system has "progressed" to the point where teaching is highly specialized, a big part of curriculum is focused on these "core" skills, and in the spirit of scale and mass production, school systems also have an objective and common way of assessing proficiency. Relative performance is deemed to matter more than individual need, ability, or potential; and schools, teachers and students alike are measured on the basis of student performance. "They" have found a "fair" way to do this - it is called Standardized Testing.

Standardized Failure

Each State in America for example has its own standardized tests to judge aggregated student performance. This then translates to how schools get funded, and how teachers and administrators get paid. As anyone would, teachers are forced to make sure students are taught exactly how to do well on the tests. Moreover, the State overseers, knowing that Federal funding depends on performance, have lowered the bar to raise pass rates. The result is embarrassing; students have "passed" these standardized tests, but not learned anything. More than a third require remediation if they are even able to get accepted into college or university in the first place. Worse, despite lowering standards, student achievement has not improved, class participation and attendance are declining, and most of the students and even some of the parents no longer respect the institution.

In effect, teachers are required to treat students on a "micro" basis, so that they have the specific tools to pass their test. There is very little scope or latitude for the teachers in the mainstream school system to create a complete, integrated learning experience with project-based outcomes, like High Tech High for example where students actually publish books, owning all aspects (writing, photography, editing, layout, production, etc.), or Seattle Girls' School, where the students conduct a full simulation of a mission to Mars (from the press conferences to space station docking to landing on Mars), and what many other charter and choice schools do around the country. This "macro" idea of treating a student as a complete person, building an integrated curriculum that develops core skills but also does so much more (create a broader, real world context and deeply engage the student) is simply not possible in the micro-brained-standardized-testing public school system.

But it's actually worse than this - the process of teaching (again a reaction to the tests) is also an issue. Because each teacher is measured on the performance of the student in their class, they in effect compete for the students' attention against other teachers in the school, making the student the victim of this mess. The teacher does this against their better judgment because they understand that rote/memorization/etc. is not true learning, but it is the way their curriculum is developed, and what they're told is the way to create students that pass tests.

Standardized tests are arbitrary judgments that move based on political and economic will and not academic efficacy or the best interests of the student. They force a micro-mentality that is not dissimilar to worst of the commercial world.

Shape of Things to Come?

Is the American education system unique? How about the American automobile industry? Their equivalent of standardized testing is the EPA and trade protection. Knowing that the Big Three couldn't compete directly with foreign companies given their manufacturing (in)ability and the burden of their union contracts, they changed the nature of environmental protection (ostensibly safeguarding best interests of their citizenry) to deem "light trucks" (which are the most profitable segment of the Big Three's portfolio) exempt from emission standards! By allowing the Big Three to blithely continue to produce badly-engineered products and marry them to incentives to make them even more attractive, they solved a problem in the short term, but as the last months have shown, the lasting effect is bankruptcy, job loss, and a massive increase in the nation's carbon footprint.

This cutting your nose off to spite your face approach is a mirror to standardized testing. Combine recent studies that show how uncompetitive American students are vs. their counterparts abroad; the relative power of the union bases; the ease with which politicians "game" the system by altering standards for convenience; and worst of all, the de-funding of schools due to the economic downturn, and you have a perfect storm that is portentous of a dire and ominous fate for Edu Americana...

"I'm not dead yet!"

Want more proof? Can you think of the most pervasive implementation of standardized testing in America? I say it's drivers' licensing. Theirs includes both a written exam and a practical street driving test. Almost every American over the age of sixteen has taken this particular test.

How successful do you think it's been? Do you think Americans are good drivers? Are they safe drivers? Are you TOTALLY confident as a pedestrian, passenger or driver that all the other drivers on the street are completely safe, trustworthy and predictable because they successfully completed their standardized test?

Life and Death is NOT Standard

Now think of your police or fire department, the military, and even your physician. What does their training look like? Are randomly-created and arbitrarily judged standardized tests their approach to creating successful graduates? Emphatically no! They are all required to observe both theory and practice, reflect and understand how things actually work, document their understanding and insight, and then extensively exhibit their proficiency in simulated or real-world settings that provide their masters with the ability to not only judge success, but also fine tune to create proficiency.

When it really matters, we do have a pretty good way of educating people for certain disciplines. There are schools that work this way in this country. Two that I've had the pleasure of visiting are High Tech High in San Diego and Seattle Girls' School; there are others (though not enough others). If you are nearby do visit them - you will be blown away.

Why then are all our children not educated this way? Why then do we resort to standardized tests that are proven failures? We must all rise together to emphatically decry this approach to education "oversight" and implore our politicians to finally do the right thing.

Are there better ways, I think so. This, this and this are where I would start.

co-creating futures

Like David Warlick, I had not read this wonderful Chinese quote before:

If you are thinking a year ahead - plant seeds;
If you are thinking 10 years ahead - plant a tree;
If you are thinking 100 years ahead - educate the people

In the next breath I read Dean Sharesky's latest posting about how the book destroyed the community. Then I remembered Scott McLeod's recent post on what students want in an e-textbook - see the graphic on the right.

Together, these three are a most powerful argument. The first sets the context - it speaks of the power of education and its impact on the destiny of a people. The second refers to a predisposition (perhaps a desire to live in the past) that the way they learned something or did something is superior to what's available now or what happens now. The third speaks to what the current student generation wants in order to successfully shape its destiny and create the best tomorrow (and today) possible.

Dean has built a persuasive "business case" to rethink the nature and role of traditional paper books, and their real implications. I must admit I had never thought of books as an anti-community catalyst, though it's hard to argue the point given Dean's post. Moreover it also opens up the question of whether a traditional book is even the best way to read.

I love books and read as much as I can, but surely there are better ways to enrich the conversation? There is an argument that a book sparks the imagination and helps create a more vivid experience and impression of the author's story. I would normally agree, but then I look at how my good friend Clyde Ford has incorporated an enriched geo-spatial dimension in the e-experience of his latest book Precious Cargo; and now believe that this is actually a much better, more vivid, and imagination-sparking approach to reading.

There is a tendency to view technology as an anti-social medium. But in talking with Clyde, I know his vision is for adults and children alike to interact with his book. To learn virtually first-hand about the places his characters traveled, visualize, annotate, share their impressions and experiences, and ideally be inspired to show off their own world (both real and imagined) using similar (or what the heck, altogether different!) tools and techniques. He believes that this is a way to spark a broader embracing of literariness, literature and self-expression. I agree.

I also think it's a way to evolve the mainstream definition of literature and expression, and maybe even learning. If mashups were one starting point for this journey, why not expand the idea and open books up to the same capability? Might that inspire more people to read and express? Might it inspire deeper learning and understanding? If greater learning occurs through the process of teaching, then I think so.

Talking of self-expression, Scott has pointed us to a fantastic analysis that shows what students want in order to become better learners.

Participation creates vestedness - if students participate in the design and potentially creation of their texts, then don't we get better results? If people in general are able to participate in the consumption (and creation) of content, don't we get improved appreciation of that content?

Isn't that the ideal outcome?

fallacious panacea

The world of education is complex, nuanced, fraught with incumbency, and a worst-case scenario for its stakeholders because unlike say astrophysics, everyone feels justified in claiming domain expertise because they went to school or have kids who are now in school.

So when new ideas are proffered, it's very easy to jump on the bandwagon with conviction; be dismissive with conviction; or find effective ways to impede change with conviction. Sadly the last has the most "authority" and most resonant effect - the first two are just words.

I came across three readables this morning. First - Andrew Rotherham's pointer to the Moskowitz-Weingarten debate on Harlem charter schools vs. the AFT. Second, David Warlick's post on a response to this May 2007 article in the New York Times on the failure of 1:1 school laptop initiatives. Third - Mike Hourahine's post on how IT leaders can be an inhibitor to technology usage in education.

The debate was interesting, at issue is how a top-down union negotiating approach can lead to slow-downs at the school or class level, and provide a shield for teachers to be less accountable and have room to "just say no" to change. The union prefers the status quo, but did offer the olive branch of creating a special contract for charter schools, which I think might be really interesting, and a potential camel's nose under the tent opportunity.

The NY Times article damns 1:1 laptop initiatives in schools because they're seen to be ineffective (no differentiated learning outcomes), too expensive (initial and ongoing costs), and result only in bandwidth availability problems (excessive porn surfing). Jeff Utecht's response to this is a great read and enumerates some of the things that also occurred to me as I read the NY Times article.

Mike Hourahine (presently the CIO for Appleby College in Oakville, Ontario) advocates that trust and freedom don't result in widespread anarchy and prolific porn surfing in schools, and that CIOs should instead be much more open to change, know what their schools really need, and what teachers and students are really doing, vs. being the perpetual naysayer.

When something new is proposed for education, everyone has an opinion, most have a visceral reaction, and everyone feels compelled express themselves. But to Jeff's point, few if any take a strategic view, and in my view, apply discipline to the questions of what, why and how:

• What is our overarching mission? Achieve quantum improvement in learning outcomes for all students.
• Why will this help us get there sooner? It can allow broader access, and deeper and richer understanding and application of the concepts.
• How will we ensure success? By integrating this within learning, adapting the pedagogy, curriculum and assessments to account for this change, ensuring adequate teacher professional development and preparation time to make the change worthwhile, and adjusting our benchmarks accordingly.

The what/why/how is not specific to laptops, it is about any change (it could be new text books, a new cafeteria menu, new crossing guard uniforms, whatever). But if the system and its people are bent on preserving the status quo (which is why "why" is so critical), then no matter how great the potential is, any success is purely accidental.

Out of the gate, 1:1 laptops were burdened with high expectations and very little preparation. Given this, the best case outcome was simple mechanization (from slate to blackboard to whiteboard to PowerPoint), no change to learning, just a slight improvement in process. There was no alteration of curriculum, teaching or assessments to account for the laptops, it was just thrown into the schools.

Technology has the potential to cost-effectively allow more people access to compelling content in a form that is best suited to their learning style. I think those who push it away are doing it for the wrong reasons, just as those that advocate it without a plan are doing it for the wrong reasons.

But the big failure was even more critical - the addition of computers came with no specific expectation of improved performance for the school, teachers or students. We all know that we are what we measure, if you don't expect improvement and raise the bar, you will not see better results. If instead they said - "we are investing $X in equipment and process change, which is Y% of our school budget, and we expect Z% improvement in learning outcomes." Even if Z was a small number, people would have rallied around it and tried to achieve or exceed expectations.

We must involve students (the customer), learn how they interact with their world today, understand how they learn, what they like, and incorporate that in the teaching process. We should recognize that no tool is a panacea, that open-minded, passionate and creative teachers will trump any technology, and that no technology will overcome a closed, uncaring, and tired teacher. Finally, we should be prepared to adapt to new tools as students evolve, 'cause they will, and we should be prepared.

the "Ed"

Andrew Rotherham recently pointed to a McKinsey analysis of national education data. A few things jumped out at me after a quick scan of the supporting materials to the article:

• We can learn from our neighbors (Canada is among the highest performing countries)
• We can spend less money (the US spends more per achievement outcome than anyone else)
• We can create more potential (effective graduates)
• That potential is worth a lot (the more graduates you have, the greater your GDP)

Then there's something missing - there has to be, otherwise how could the American education not be be better than it is?

If you were told: "You can spend less to create a better product that will make you more money, and one of the best examples of this is your next-door neighbor." Wouldn't you do it?

What are we missing??

This reminds me of The Karate Kid, a coming of age film where a boy learns how to defend himself from a group of thugs with the help of his Japanese superintendent. The Super starts him off with some work around his house, painting the fence, washing the floor, waxing the car - all done in a very specific way. After doing all these seemingly meaningless chores, the boy gets angry and frustrated, and that's when the old man, with a slew of attacks, shows him that he's unknowingly built the muscles and reflexes that are the essence of self-defense!

The sensei was wise, proven and savvy enough to know what elemental skills the boy needed, how best to teach them to him, and once these seemingly unrelated skills were mastered, he helped the boy realize that he had learned something altogether different.

The American education system needs a sensei. Someone with the wisdom and guile to craft a profound outcome out of a series of seemingly unrelated acts that suddenly explode on the American people,  forming the basis of a great education system.

The traditional approach is based on the Everett Rogers Innovation Diffusion Curve to the left. School teachers fit this curve very nicely. The most visible, Web 2.0, twittering blogger-types are all in the Innovators category, with Early Adopters, the Majorities, and maybe a slightly bigger than smaller category of Laggards.

But the Innovators are too far ahead of everyone else, so much so that the mainstream simply can't connect with them. Traditionally, the Early Adopters would bridge the gap to the Majorities and help pull them along into the future, and while this is how grassroots/organic change will happen in education, I think this process is too slow and too fragmented to yield meaningful results by itself. Moreover, the Majorities have enormous inertia and inadequate incentives to be receptive to quantum change.

We need a catalyst (sensei) with unimpeachable authority and strength, based on wisdom and experience to create the circumstances where "epiphanically" a national transformation occurs. It might take a decade to happen, but we all know it will, because our sensei is just that good.

I wonder - who is the Peter Drucker of Education?

Where is this person who has the chops and cred to be able to make profound change happen? And how would it happen?

It's time for America to create a non-political, national sister organization to the Federal Reserve/Ben Bernanke for Education.

We could call it "the Ed."

We just need to find our sensei.

ability, trust and chemistry

Dean Shareski wrote a fantastic open letter to his students - I'm convinced the majority of teachers would wholeheartedly agree with him - it, plus the comments are worth a quick read.

I bet that most teachers would LOVE to embrace the ideas that Dean espoused, flaunt the arbitrary grading requirement, and bemoan the fact that graduating today proves only that you were able to successfully navigate the school system during your twelve year journey.

I also had this recent conversation with Tony Wagner where we talked about his book and the survival skills students should be developing through school. Again, there was violent agreement about the rightness of this, and like Dean's post, there was virtual unanimity that this is precisely the stuff our children should be learning in school - grades be damned - we want our children to be equipped for the real world!

Finally, David Warlick reacted to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's view that to compete with India & China, we should teach school six days/week, eleven months/year by suggesting that we just put them all in jail. Judging from the flurry of comments on David's blog, there's even more violent agreement here:)!

So - what's really harshing on our collective mellow??? I think it has nothing to do with what happens in school, but everything to do with the the world outside school.

Here are some hurdles students must overcome to call their learning a success:

• Parents - who at the end of the day still focus on the grade/GPA and relative performance of their child(ren) - parents it seems are more competitive than students
• Universities/colleges - who still filter students largely based on grades or SAT
• Employers - who still prefer students that went to the "right" schools, ranked higher or achieved better grades

Until these three alter their behavior, there is really no way for the public primary/secondary school system to move away from what Dean, Tony and David railed against. The measure of a child's performance during school should be much more about their best outcome and less about arbitrary standardized assessments or grades.

It is rare that academic achievement is the only determinant of workplace success - there are so many other factors that go into it. I wonder whether the hiring managers of tomorrow will get sucked into the same morass that prevails today, or whether they will be able to rise above it and realize that looking at the whole person (attitude, team spirit, integrity, ability, passion, tenacity, intellect, academic proficiency) and their complete portfolio of "work" is so much more critical to the hiring process.

During informational interviews for prospective employees who might be working for me, I review the three things I look for - ability (can you get the job done?), trust (will you trust us, can we trust you?), and chemistry (will you be a part of our family and make us better?). Of these the first is how you get through the door and into the interview process in the first place - it is the easiest to judge. The second and third are what our team will evaluate when we meet with you, these are incredibly difficult to discern, but I trust our team's judgment and instincts.

It is really critical for us to get it right, and when we do, the team/family is better, and our ability to achieve greatness is strengthened. I've never cared whether a candidate went to a "good" school, and have never checked their grades.

But if it's the right person for our team, we are destined for success.

edu-urgency?

Understanding the target audience is critical to the success of any business. Understanding the business model of your company is rather important as well. If you don't know why and how you make money, any success is a fluke.

How do schools or school systems "make money"? If a school is like a restaurant - the chef is the principal, the sous-chefs are faculty, the maitre d' is the vice principal, and the waiters are the staff. The differences (in no particular order):

1. A chef knows immediately if his work is successful, the principal doesn't
2. A chef gets paid by his customers, the principal doesn't
3. Chefs get fired if their product isn't good, the faculty has tenure
4. The restaurant (except in Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares) succeeds by giving it's customers the best, a school succeeds by meeting its funder's targets
5. A restaurant is inspired to be special, unique and ever-evolving to attract the best clientele, a student has no choice, and will attend school no matter how un-special, average, and boring it is.

Conclusion - schools are not set up to care about their customers, just their funders. The business model for learning in this country bears almost no accountability for the satisfaction or success of its customers. The decentralized model of learning in America theoretically avoids this issue by operating "close to the customer" and being driven by the expectations of parents (theoretically closest to their children). Boy - that's really worked well hasn't it!

Instead of student-driven, adapted to local requirements, direct accountability, we have inefficiency, inconsistency, budget shortfalls, and poor leadership. More than one quarter of high school students fail to graduate. Last year more than 1.3 million graduates required remediation (inability to read, write or do basic math effectively) before entering college or university.

The situation is dire, but there's no urgency or imperative for change (I'm thinking of something at the level of "national security" on September 12, 2001). We are capable of rapid and dramatic change, we just need to feel the urgency - we felt it after 9-11, and IMO the Education crisis in this country is much, much more serious.

Moreover, we're not short on benchmarks for success in our very own backyard. Seattle Girls' School and High Tech High are proof that learning greatness is possible, and can be successful. Why are they unique? One reason is the brilliance & strength of their leaders, the other is the fact that they sit outside the system. No doubt there are many innovators within the system as well - some that I admire are in my blog roll. They should all be the rule and not the exception.

How do we create a structure that allows SGS & HTH to be the norm? To start, let's federalize learning. The distributed model has failed, let's centralize. Let's redefine success - schools must be more accountable and directly tied to the end result of their work - successful graduates. 

BUT - we must only Federalize the "what" not the "how." The Feds should finance Education, and they must define success in a way that is external to the K-12 schools. It's not about erasing creativity and local context, it's about creating a national mandate for learning outcomes - the "what." The "how" should still be in the hands of schools and teachers - they're the ones who understand their own students and community and how best to serve them.

The great thing about this approach is that no school gets left behind. Funding should be available to all schools whether rural, urban, inner city, or suburban. Every school should be held to a single standard of accomplishment, and budgets should not be victims of local or state circumstances. Many of us live in States where budgets are being cut, and education is being made to pay the price - that's not an acceptable scenario.

We must create an apocalyptic sense of urgency about Education in this country and then take drastic measures.

the target audience

Most rapid successes in the commercial world come from people who built something that they themselves would use, knowing (or hoping) that there were many others out there like them who would be similarly compelled. Their second advantage came from knowing themselves, and knowing where they'd go to shop for something like this, and how much they'd be willing to spend on it - thus was formed their marketing strategy.

But then the plague of success hits - they get bigger, hire more people, get an MBA intern. and fall into the trap of PowerPoint, market evaluation, quantitative and qualitative analyses, projections, focus groups, etc., and all of a sudden ideation and marketing become a process-laden mechanism that has its own definition of success and failure, which may or may not correlate to actual business success.

At this point, it's hard to identify that original company, its original passion and commitment to the audience, etc. At this point, things like Seth Godin's sugar-coated corporate speak emerge. Why? Because MBAs and lawyers and HR people get involved, and marketing becomes data-driven, lawsuit-proof, politically-correct "customer engagement tool" vs. the process of authentically and creatively driving demand to capacity.

This organization must get out of its strategic entrenchment and sense, respond and adapt. It must focus on what matters most, their knowledge and intimate understanding of their audience, its needs, its passions, and what the customer will pay for. They can do this by recapturing that which started them off on a path to success in the first place.

What if you didn't have that first-hand knowledge? Pete Reilly spoke of the need for new paradigms this week, specifically about why "shared pencil" and "many watching one" models for learning are not very effective, and proposes a new paradigm of "ubiquitous access" based on cloud computing and virtualization. Just two days before this, Scott McLeod wrote about the efficacy of netbooks in schools.

I admire both these gentlemen immensely - they are passionate, proven and respected educators (I am not); and while I wholeheartedly agree with their premise (that a paradigm shift is needed, as is better technology for learning), I worry that they might be missing a critical element.

The target audience.

Students are not adults. They have (as both Pete and Scott have spoken about many times) an absolute affinity with technology. The adult frame of reference is different, and the adult's filter is different, adults are not children.

The customer of a school system is the student. Like Google's advertising model, the students don't pay for the service, but if they aren't achieving the right outcomes, the funding/ads will dry up. Proof that the education system hasn't internalized this - "no child left behind," "education reform," abysmal graduation rates, etc.

What do students want? A friend was telling me recently that he bought his 14-year-old son an iPod Touch and an Acer Ferrari 1100 laptop. The former costs roughly a tenth of the latter. One day he walked in on his son doing homework with his Touch while the Ferrari sat, closed and untouched. Dad asked Son why he wasn't using the laptop (bigger screen, keyboard, faster, etc.), and Son said he was fine as-is. Dad then asked Son if he'd be good without the laptop altogether, and after a pause to think about it, Son said "yes." Dad took the laptop away Son hasn't yet asked for it.

I think Pete and Scott ought to reflect on the real needs of the customer. "Ubiquitous access" today is about mobile devices that the students already have or can get easily and cheaply. It's about schools and educators opening their minds to the idea that the customer and hence the target audience is not people like them. Students' use of technology is dramatically different from adults. Tomorrow it will change again.

The paradigm of teaching will need to adapt to the requirements and expectations of its customers, and engage them in their context. Most project-based learning schools already do this. What's more, in this new world, schools may have to re-think certain concepts - preventing text messaging (and the use of mobile phones) because it looks like "cheating" might be replaced with encouraging the use of text/mobile because it is teamwork. But as an adult, I'm sure this is already so last year...

elemental learning

I received an email from Steven Volk a few days ago - he's a professor of education at Northeastern Illinois University who wrote an article entitled Why Go To School? In it, he speaks first on how today's schools treat students like widgets in a factory and are totally devoid of joy. Steven goes on to enumerate and describe the eleven elements that he believes are necessary for schools to do justice to their students:

1. Self; caring and empathy; peace and nonviolence; money, family, food, and happiness
2. Social responsibility; global awareness; environmental literacy; multicultural community; media literacy
3. A love for learning; creativity and imagination

This (with my ordering of his elements) makes for an interesting framing of what schools should teach. Makes a lot of sense.

School must provide a child with the ability to develop and build the atoms they will need to shape the molecules that will comprise their life. There are two kinds of atoms - basic and nuanced. The basics I've talked about before: the capacity to find information and sift through it; the ability to distill it into insight (which requires an understanding of the basics); and the skill to persuasively communicate new ideas. And the nuanced: we must help students know and embrace who they are; know and embrace the people and world around them as their own; and seek and desire the joy of learning and the pleasure of creating.

Let's say we make progress, and our high schools are able to graduate students with anything remotely resembling these atoms, what do we think will happen next? I ask because I also read this amazing article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. In a nutshell, it says that the advent of the Internet led (albeit with a longer fuse than anticipated) directly to the demise of newspapers. It goes on to say that universities may well suffer the same fate, quoting one of my heroes:

Thirty years from now, the big university campuses will be relics. ... Such totally uncontrollable expenditures, without any visible improvement in either the content or the quality of education, means that the system is rapidly becoming untenable. Peter Drucker, 1997

I totally agree. Tuition fees have risen dramatically, there is little oversight or cost control in the system (compared to a typical corporation), many professors are reluctant teachers, and in a model that celebrates anarchy (aka academic freedom), the concept of customer-centricity is largely foreign (exceptions include University of Phoenix, and it's peers). But this isn't their real problem.

Their real problem is that students entering high schools today are completely comfortable learning via iTunes U, or listening to Professor Walter Lewin's brilliant lectures at MIT Open Courseware. They may not all need formal university lectures to learn. Already university students increasingly attend electronic lectures. And when these students graduate, they will not look askance at students whose lecture bias was more electronic than personal. So the real problem will be compounded by the fact that employers a decade from now may be less interested in the academic accreditation when presented with a prospective candidate's e-portfolio, which so eloquently and persuasively demonstrates her work to-date.

It is then that the elements of learning will have reconstituted themselves. If the K-12 school system does its job well, and its graduates have been prepared with the atoms they need to create the molecules they will be, universities may end up holding a very different role in our society than they do now.

Perhaps this won't take a mere decade, and of course many universities will remain strong, but I believe the premise that is their undergrad cash cow will change dramatically. The elements of learning tomorrow will be very different from today. It's time to start preparing for this. University leaders should begin the retooling process now, or some may follow in the path of many of today's newspapers.

It's time to begin (re)creating the elements of higher learning.

getting your ticket punched

Brian Dixon wrote a great post on the transforming role of education. As I read it, I asked myself - what is the most elemental reason that people get an education?

For parents, it's about structured, mostly free babysitting; though I suppose wanting more for your kids than you had and thinking that education is the path towards that might have some influence.

For the government, it's about capacity creation. Once we moved into the Industrial Age, it became clear that GDP growth was tied to capacity to scale output, which was tied to the capacity to create scalable output, which was dependent on educated people. Plus most politicians are lawyers, and despite Shakespeare's best efforts, they still live, are inexorably linked to their alma maters, and want to see them live on and be filled with students.

For the student... now there's an interesting question. In most cases, entering the education system is an involuntary act. At some point they get used to it, and then hopefully enjoy it, building a community of friends, etc. But why (at the most fundamental level) do students wish to be in school?

A part of it (especially today) is that children know we live in a capitalist/market-driven world. They know also that from food to clothes to cars to games to phones to whatever, the biggest impediment to getting what they want (besides parental and legal constraints) is money. Once they're old enough, as long as they operate within the rules of society, the main thing in the way of what they want (or think they want) is money.

Again - why school? Until the Information Age, the ticket to employment (and thence income) was an accreditation of some kind. The better the accreditation, the better the employment & wage. School was the most likely path towards this. Two things have changed in the last couple of decades - first the success of athletes and musicians that prompted some to believe they had a non-academic path to bling; and second, the success of creative Internet commerce (mostly by young people) where "accreditation" wasn't required - examples include the Million Dollar Homepage, and of course this Forbes list of teenage millionaires - most of whom were really smart, but seemingly didn't require school to get it done.

Notwithstanding the fact that these successes are the equivalent of winning the lottery, it still puts children in a place that deeply questions the need for school. This of course creates yet more pressure on schools to be a place that compels children to want to attend and remain.

Back to Brian, I was at his place of work (High Tech High) last week. It is an incredible school. There are many things that make it so, but two stand out for me - first that it is a joyous place, and second that every student that I met or saw exuded "I can be anything." This is a tribute to the philosophy of this school and its amazing teachers. I got to spend some time with Brian and Larry Rosenstock, CEO of High Tech High (HTH). We had a wonderful conversation, one that befitting the surroundings, spanned a gazillion topics. Of course I learned a ton, and emerged that much more inspired and grateful that I get to do what I get to do.  While we didn't talk about it, I believe Larry would sign up for the three measures of school success I suggested here.

At HTH, I saw students wanting to be in a place where inspiration provokes outcomes, where the outcomes are meaningful, and where everyone (faculty, staff and students alike) thinks: "we can, we must, we will." It is this type of inspiration that every student needs, the inspiration to not merely seek the quick, easy win or a free ride, but instead the path of challenges, team work, and accomplishment - that's the ticket.

strength and honor

Leadership and teaching excellence seem to have a lot in common. Is a great teacher a great leader? Is a great leader a great teacher?

Pete Reilly wrote about what it takes to be great in front of the class, and suggested three things (my paraphrasing):

1. Be grounded; be confident, open and connected to your audience
2. Remember you are serving your audience, not vice versa
3. Have the courage to be open and passionate.

In almost the same breath, I read about sustainable careers and why business school may not be worth revisiting. Dana (the author of Investoralist) states five reasons why she would not go back to business school again (my paraphrasing):

1. Graduates aren't fit to give business advice
2. Business schools create masochists [<-- :-D]
3. "I wouldn't trust me with your money"
4. We lost our senses of humor
5. Every gig is transient, take what you can and move on

Ironic.

If you have five minutes, both blogs are well worth a read. Together, they punctuate something I've felt strongly about for some time. Leadership requires much more than training. Business schools can do a disservice to their customers by giving graduates the impression that they are immediately able to lead and create success. Teachers colleges likewise don't appear to train teachers to lead.

Clayton Christensen once told me that MBA programs teach people to make decisions based on the rear-view mirror. Everything is inferred from the past, and based on a highly procedural, structured, methodology. This does not a leader make. No doubt that there are many talented leaders who have MBAs, but I don't think it was the MBA that made them so - they had that before they enrolled.

In both teaching and the corporate world, experience can give you the confidence to be adept in front of a room, but it doesn't ensure leadership. It seems that one is taught how to use authority versus leadership. We all know that authority is about power. And power (and its abuse) are why we still and likely always will need workers' rights laws and unions. It is also why some students don't get to learn.

Extending what Pete and Dana said, I say leadership is about vision, courage, commitment, empathy and inspiration.

• The vision to discern a path both compelling and meaningful.
• The courage to stand for something, and to be decisive.
• The commitment to remain a believer when it's hardest and you're in the doldrums, but more importantly to stand in front of, beside and behind everyone who works for you.
• The empathy to care for (really, to love) the people you work with and know and relish that each is, and contributes uniquely.
• The inspiration to exceed your grasp and the ability to infect others to do the same.

There's more I'm sure, but if these aren't there, leadership isn't there either.

I'm reminded of Gladiator, and Maximus' speech to his soldiers before the battle at the beginning of the movie:

Three weeks from now I will be harvesting my crops. Imagine where you will be, and it will be so. Hold the line! Stay with me! ...What we do in Life echoes in Eternity.

This guy was a leader and a teacher. Maybe Business Schools and Teachers' Colleges should consider building an arena...

F-Edu-reform?

Kalman R. Hettleman wrote an interesting article in the Washington Post about the five myths in education reform:

1. We know how to fix public schools; we just lack the political will to finish the job.
2. Teachers know best how to teach kids; policymakers should leave them alone.
3. The federal government meddles too much in the affairs of local schools.
4. Teacher unions are the enemy.
5. There's no place in education for politics.

He refuted all of these very well.

I read another article by Dave Clinefelter of Rethinking Higher Education on college tuition. Dave's first data point is sobering - median family income has risen by 5% over the last decade, but college tuition has risen by 65%. He cites many reasons for this, but the big one is that State funding has fallen off dramatically, and the schools can't keep up.

A key factor in both cases is how much local vs. state vs. federal involvement there is or should be in education.

I think education should not be funded locally or at the state level - it should be all federal. If for no other reason than a state's local economy should not prevent any student from getting the best possible education. The second reason - a child should not be penalized for living in a state where the education leaders are ...not clear thinkers. Third, if students who graduate (whether to go into tertiary education or the workforce) are compared nationally, standards (curriculum, assessments, etc.) should be described nationally, and be consistent across the country - an even playing field. Finally, salaries for educators should (with regional cost-of-living accommodations) be equal across the country.

I'm not however saying that the Feds should tell teachers how to teach. Instead they should define the outcomes that schools are expected to create, and then develop standards that judge the quality of schools relative to each other based on the quality of their graduates. As I wrote before, I believe we must know what the goal is and that you are what you measure.

By the same token, I don't think that all teachers are prefect or even universally effective. I wrote about a number of teachers that don't seem to have their students' best interests at heart - I don't think that is acceptable either.

This is controversial, I know. Many believe that education is a local issue, should managed by those that can accommodate the unique requirements of their locale, and that it should be funded at the local level. I don't agree. This is too important to be random, to be left in the hands of those who are might take a whimsical approach to education, or bow to tough budgetary times. It is not acceptable for our schools, teachers and most critically, our students to be compromised.

Stimulate Profound Learning Outcomes

What recommendation would you give the President if he asked for your views on how best to energize our economy? I'm assuming The Big O has all the time in the world, and does in fact read this blog! So here goes, starting with the program musts:

• Must have an immediate impact
• Must be something that has a pre-defined and fixed end
• The economy must continue to flow and remain energetic once the stimulus stops
• It can not be something that ought to be in the budget anyway (i.e. investments that should be sustained over time)
• It must have the effect of being inspiring as well as provoke optimism and a belief that it's not time to "hunker down" and save for a rainy day
• It should not be prone to abuse and fraud

I've written recently about the stimulus package here and here, and then before that had written about two ideas that I'd come up with on the mortgage crisis and then about Detroit Big Three. I still like these, and they fit the criteria.

What about tax-related approaches? A lot of attention goes towards cuts or rebates - and I was generally skeptical about that, but then read this and this, and wondered if I was wrong. Digging a bit deeper, I found this and this. Conclusion: there is no conclusive evidence that a tax cut or rebate will create a positive stimulus to the economy.

But - are we over-thinking this? What's the one thing people are most worried about right now? The one thing that makes them want to save and not spend? The one thing that creates the fear of "what happens tomorrow?" Unemployment - if you feel like your job is here to stay, that your cash flow is predictable, then I think spending will follow, and economic vibrancy is the result. How do we create meaningful, sustainable jobs without bloating the government?

Combining my recent post on the learnings from Japan, where the greatest ROI from their stimuli was from Education investments (174% growth), with this post from Eduwonk, which pointed to this excellent analysis correlating jobs at risk with education level, and now add this entry I wrote last year called Redefining Learning. It suggests that the earlier children are engaged in learning, the better. It also says that teacher-to-student ratios should be highest in early years - from age zero to ten or twelve, and then go down from there. And, we know that investing in Education is goodness all around.

Based on all of this, we should:

1. Redefine public school-eligible ages to begin from the second year (age 1+) through to the eighteenth year (age 17+)
2. Specify teacher-to-student ratios going from 5:1 to 30:1, growing with the students' age
3. Redefine curriculum and assessment standards based on existing research
4. Establish teacher qualification standards and certify teachers colleges
5. Determine the physical classroom and teacher capacity that will be required to service our population 25 years out; this will feed into post-secondary requirements as well

The stimulus package should:

1. Construct new schools **all physical assets in schools should be federalized - they own, provision and maintain all public schools in the country **
2. Expand Teachers' College capacity to accommodate new teacher requirements for the next 25 years
3. Develop a national curriculum with corresponding assessment standards
4. The States (who now don't own and maintain the schools) will hire the new teachers and staff
5. The Stimulus will bump up State funding for staffing
6. The Feds will commit to maintaining schools and State education funding through budget cycles

Implications

Daycare centers will be redundant, but all these jobs just transfer to the new model. Parents of young children will find their "operating costs" are lowered dramatically as the public system covers what was daycare, they will have the time to at least get part-time jobs, and their ability to make ends meet should improve. There will be a surge in employment for construction (which will taper off over time), teachers colleges will grow, we will lower unemployment, and of course the ranks of teachers will double (3 million additional jobs), adding tremendously to the goodness of our country and our children.

What are we waiting for?

Imbeciles at play

Athletes using steroids ...who cares???

Why are Congress, State authorities and the media so obsessed with these ridiculous issues? Surely there has never been a time in the history of America where its lawmakers had so little real work to do that they needed to conduct congressional hearings (spending millions of dollars) on whether professional athletes used chemicals to improve their performance?? Duh!

I'm the first to acknowledge that athletes are role models, and children are easily influenced and will follow in the steps of their idols. BUT - if that's true, why would you publicize the fact that some of the best, most successful and most admired athletes did something bad? Is it not reasonable to assume that a child will look at A-Rod or Barry Bonds or Jose Canseco or whomever and say - hmmm... these guys became mega-super-duper-stars, made TONS of money, drove amazing cars, had all those beautiful women throwing themselves at them, etc., etc., and what's the one thing I remember about how they got there? Steroids!

So what will that child do???

Yep, you guessed it. A quick search yielded these (1, 2, 3) articles on steroid use among teens, and in the last article, correlating it directly to Barry Bonds' usage of steroids through BALCO.

By showcasing and publicizing these athletes, by Congress sticking it's nose in the problem, and by Attorneys General in various states getting involved (because of course there are no other crimes and criminals in their states), all we've done is glorified the effect of steroids, and provided children who are always looking for a quick fix an easy way out.

This is emblematic of our society. It's hard to find a day when the media doesn't exalt bad behavior, or some idiot (witness the media following Joe the Plumber during his trip to Israel) making a fool of themselves. The media will tell you that that drives viewership or readership, and that's why they do it.

Isn't or shouldn't our media adhere to a higher standard? Why is it that in this country more people exalt bad behavior than good? In fact, the only consistent acknowledgment of good behavior in this country is directed at soldiers, fire fighters and police officers. Can you think of the last time you saw someone other than these (doubtless very deserving) communities be recognized in the mainstream?

Have you for example seen Nobel Laureates or even Space Shuttle crews get this kind of recognition? Has anyone (other than Obama during the campaign) been lauded for being smart in your memory? Is it any wonder that our children wish to blend in at school (never be exceptional), and seek the quick, easy path to success (sports, music, selling drugs), versus going to school, getting an education and getting a great job?

Look at the ethic of most of the children in the countries referenced in this entry (from India, China and Africa). I went to school in Tanzania for the first few years of my life. In our school (as with most schools in the "third" world), every child aspired to sit at the front of the class. Why? Because that's where the smartest children sat, and that's where we all wanted to be. When I got to North America, being smart was not just uncool, it would get you beaten up!

Instead of opening investigations and hearings on the use of steroids in baseball, Congress should keep its eye on the ball, and recognize and applaud the great things that smart and successful people do in this country, and show our children the very direct correlation between education and economic success.

A Heathy Earmark

Harvard Business Publishing's recent Daily Stat was one of those that amazed; it quotes a McKinsey report that 34% (yes, more than one-third!) of Americans are considered obese. This represents over 100 million people! Worse, this has doubled since 1980; so in the last 30 years, the number of obese people in the United States has gone from below 50 million (bad) to more than 100 million (horrible).

I wrote about preventative health a little while ago, where I related that we spend $2 trillion on health care in this country.  Someone who is morbidly obese (40+% Body Mass Index) is part of the fastest growing segment of the obese (mind-boggling) requires about $7,500/year in health care costs, almost twice what a non-obese adult costs. If we were to go back to the obesity rates of 1980 (just below 17%), we'd save the country $60 billion! That's on top of the $40 billion that Americans spend on trying to get thin in 2004. I'm guessing it's higher now.

In many cases, obesity is involuntary, due to medical causes. I figure (and I'm just guessing) that accounts for 15-20% of the population. Which leaves 80+ million people who are able to do something about their weight, and avoid the fate of being unhealthy, having a poor quality of life, and maybe even being unhappy.

Most of the 80 million people are adults; they are set in their ways, and would struggle mightily to alter their lifestyles and diets to regain their rightful shape, though this is not to say they shouldn't try. But I bet there are at least 15 million children who are obese or morbidly obese in this country, and for most of them, habit is not a problem. They can be helped.

What can be done? How can it be done at scale?

One obvious place to start would be the schools. And there, three things come to mind:

1. Improve the quality of food in the cafeterias and vending machines - only natural, healthy food allowed.
2. Change the rewards that teachers give students for doing good work, no more candy or sweets.
3. Require extensive physical education curriculum, and make it mandatory for all grades in every semester - every student must get exercise for at least an hour/day.

Each of these can easily be implemented, and end up saving money! The problem is, they will cost the education system money but save the health care system more. While this creates a net positive effect, the problem is that the education system is already strapped, and are over-budget already, and simply can't afford to add new dietary programs and physical education classes.

Well, can the health care system (public and private insurance carriers, etc.) just pay to do these three things in all public schools in the country? Think of the PR boost they would get, the amount of focus this would get in the national ethos, and hopefully how it might inspire those not in school to also evaluate their lifestyles? Remember that they'd actually come out ahead by doing this.

Imagine

Imagine if kids didn't need to bring lunch from home because a healthy lunch was available at school. Imagine if each child graduating from secondary school could run a 10K, play a team sport or do something else that demonstrated their fitness.

Imagine that after graduating, young people hate the idea of not exercising every day, and abhor junk food? I know that some restaurants (if you can call them that) would not be happy, so be it. Imagine a situation where we didn't have the incidents of diabetes, obesity, heart conditions, cholesterol problems, etc. that beset so much of this country today!

Now imagine if despite doing all of this, the nation's economy was made stronger because we were spending less on health care, and our citizenry was healthier and more productive?

That's something worth fighting for.

How does one lobby Congress to put earmarks for education diet and fitness in health care bills?

Drawing the line

I subscribe to eSchool News, and find most of their issues have something of interest, but I never expected to see this subject line: eSN Today: Porn charges for 'sexting' stir debate in my inbox!

Sexting is where teenagers use their cell phones to take and distribute nude pictures of themselves. And because there are laws governing the distribution of obscene materials, prosecutors are charging teenagers for both sending and receiving these materials. The charges can include felony obscenity or child pornography, and might result adding "sex offender" to the person's hopefully confidential juvenile record.

First, based on this search, I had no idea this was such a big thing (375k results). Second, it never occurred to me that a minor distributing pictures of themselves could constitute child pornography, though it does make sense (separating the two acts - taking the picture, and distributing it). Third, how does a kid get arrested for receiving a text message?  Finally, it got me thinking about the approach that officials have taken to discourage it, and how well similar approaches have worked for other "bad acts."

It has generally been difficult for the adults to effectively police the kids, or find the right deterrent. More often than not, the attention given to the act (and the adults' negative views) results in more frequent occurrences that are more effectively hidden from older eyes. The risk only adds to the allure.

Where to draw the line? It is illegal for minors to drink, smoke, drive, and I'm sure many other things. It is also illegal for minors to have consensual sex.

How effective have these laws been? Do you think that the laws have resulted in deterring these behaviors? Did they stop you?

What's next? Will the police start arresting minors who masturbate and charge them with statutory rape? Will there be a harsher penalty for repeat "offenders"?? Will there be any minors left to roam the malls? What will they do to while away the days in their jail cells? What will all those poor child-molesting priests do? [OK - that last one was in bad taste - apologies.]

Is there a better way? What if we erased the line altogether?

I'm thinking about countries I've visited where there isn't a child drinking problem. In France and Italy for example, adults don't seem to share America's angst. Their minors drink wine at the dining table with the family, and have for generations. Their open-mindedness towards this has not only resulted in this not being an issue, but because children are taught "how to drink" at a young age, and don't view it as a novelty or illicit in any way, there are dramatically less incidents of alcohol abuse in children in these countries vs. the USA.

Let's look at Finland, where most friends and families routinely sauna together. In their culture, it is a faux pas to wear clothing in a sauna. So the naked body has no novelty value for children in Finland - they see it all the time. I'm guessing that sexting is not a problem in Finland.

Now let's look at the potentially horrific societal effects of having a glass of wine with dinner in Italy or France, or sitting naked in a sauna with people of either gender in Finland - wait a minute, there aren't any! The French and Italians do not have higher alcoholism or liver problem rates than Americans. And the Finns don't have higher child pornography or child abuse rates than America!

Maybe it's time for America to erase the lines, before all our teenagers are arrested for felony masturbation.