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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Teachers

Empowering students and lessons in giving constructive feedback

A guest post by Brooke Chaplan

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

Students today more than ever before need to be empowered to go on to live effective, successful lives. It is important students of all ages have good examples of learning and education in their lives. They also need constructive feedback from teachers that can help them to mature as learners and as people. As a teacher, you are privileged to be able to give them both.

 

Begin with a Passion For Teaching

Your love for teaching will be the first thing students notice about you as a teacher. It doesn’t matter if you particularly like an individual subject you may have to teach, although that certainly helps. What students need to see in you is a passion for the art of teaching that will tell them that it is important for them to learn.

If you have a passion to teach, it will be translated to your students in thousands of non-verbal ways throughout your classes. They will see it in your eyes, in the invigorating way you talk about your subjects, and even in your tone of voice. The payback for translating your passion to your students will be that some of them will emulate your example and become teachers themselves. If you can demonstrate the best parts of learning it can inspire others to be lifelong learners themselves.

Personal Interest in Your Students Is Vitally Important

The teachers that make the most significant impression on students are those who take a personal interest in their lives. You may be teaching a very large class of students, where it is difficult to get to know each child individually. Nevertheless, in any class there are those students who stand out to you as either being very talented or very needy. You should invest the time to reach out to both of them, because they both need your help in different ways.

Exceptional students need to be spurred on to greater growth. Take college students aside and encourage them to perhaps pursue and online Master’s in higher education. Talk to younger middle school and elementary school students about honing their talents and finding what they are good at. Help them to find out how they can use their personal talents to pursue the career they were meant for.

Needy students can need a challenge for any number of reasons. You will need to take the time out of your schedule to find out why. Perhaps they have a troubling home situation, or may have cognitive challenges. Unfortunately, many students today have chemical addictions as well. Whatever the reason, attempt to help them and put them on the right path. Even a kind note on an essay can be a good personal notice for more shy students.

Share Your Constructive Criticism When Needed

Constructive criticism always has a positive edge to it. Though it may be initially perceived by the student as being negative, it is intended to correct for greater positive growth. It does not beat down or demoralize. In any class of students, it is sometimes needed.

Constructive criticism is something that should always be shared in private. Begin by telling the student the good things you see about him or her. This will get you started off on the right track. Then tell them what you think is holding them back, and how they can make a positive change. After this is done, reaffirm your confidence in them as an individual. If you share your concerns in the right way, it’s possible that the student will heed your advice. Learning from mistakes and error is one of the most important parts of teaching and learning.

Being a teacher is not an easy job, but the reward is that you are allowed to help students to reach their individual potential as human beings, and see them succeed. With positive feedback and constructive criticism you can help student succeed. It’s up to them as much as you to see where the future can take them.

Brooke Chaplan is a freelance writer and blogger. She lives and works out of her home in Los Lunas, New Mexico. She loves the outdoors and spends most her time hiking, biking and gardening. For more information contact Brooke via Twitter @BrookeChaplan.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Matthew Lynch, Teachers

How to Teach a Room of Digital Natives

Children in today’s classrooms will most likely be digital natives, people who were born in the digital era and have used technology all their lives. These students may be more receptive to instruction involving technologies. Technology can be used successfully if a teacher has the tools and knows how to use them. For example, cell phones are often disruptive elements in the classroom. A savvy teacher might take advantage of cell phones as instructional tools, rather than allow them to be an intrusive element in the classroom. The Internet, computers, and communication devices are things that today’s children live with. Using them successfully will increase student enthusiasm about knowledge, and teachers will have the opportunity to lead richer classes.

You’ll be required to find ways to introduce technology into your classroom, not only to make your life easier, but also to ensure that your students are exposed to technology. The modern working world will require even the most unskilled of laborers to be technologically literate, which makes it important for this exposure to begin within the classroom. This will not necessarily require you to make every aspect of the learning process dependent on technology. You could simply use technology to deliver standards-based lessons, or to change some activities to make them more interesting for students. Linking Web-based activities with standards-based curricula will keep students’ attention on what you need to teach them, but it will also help them to think and develop their own understanding of the topic.

The field of technology is advancing rapidly, and you’ll need to remain in touch with ongoing developments to avoid missing opportunities to leverage technology in your teaching practice. Professional development is an essential investment; attending technology expositions or conventions assists pre-service and in-service teachers in learning about available new advances in technology. The staff on hand at these events can explain practical instructional applications. Increasing your understanding will enhance your confidence when introducing technology to your class.

The Internet allows access to nearly limitless information. It’s estimated that the information contained in a week’s worth of the New York Times is more than the information a person in the 18th century would have in a lifetime. Students now have access to online information inside and outside school. And although this information is easy to access and relatively easy to find, you’ll guide students to determine whether it’s reliable and guide them to avoid becoming overwhelmed by the enormous amount of online information.

Consider all the resources, whether in hardware or software, that you have at hand to bring into play in your classroom. Figure out how each can be used as an effective teaching tool. As a teacher, you have little enough time and space already; use technology to make your curriculum bigger and stronger, not just more cluttered.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert

Is Sesame Street more important than preschool?

According to a new study produced by Melissa Kearney of the University of Maryland and Phillip Levine of Wellesley College, Sesame Street teaches children just as well as preschool.

Well, kind of.

The Washington Post reports that “kids can learn as much from ‘Sesame Street’ as from preschool” because of the show’s focus on “academic curriculum.”

Levine and Kearney’s study found that kids received the same benefits from Sesame Street as they did with Head Start. While other studies have explored the notion of if preschool was needed at all, this one adds another layer to that argument by maybe proving that educational television may be just as vital to a child’s development.

Kearney told the Post that due to the benefits of the study that it may open more doors to alternative forms of education down the road. With the cost of college rising, student loan debt exploding, and educators searching for new and innovative ways to educate students, having something similar to Sesame Street on TV or via the internet may serve a new population of students.

Free and sustainable forms of education are readily available via Massive Open Online Courses and this study further proves the viability of alternative forms of free education. It seems to me that the focus should be more on open access to high standards of education, and less on what price tag we can put on these items. There is a reason that Sesame Street has such a lasting appeal — and I think it can teach all educators some lessons in the best way to reach students.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Teachers

Using the free classes on iTunes U

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Kristi Meeuwse, ADE

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education. -Martin Luther King

Thinking critically and intensively is not reserved for older students. We work diligently to create learning experiences in kindergarten that allow our young students to think deeply about various topics. Having iPads allows us to enrich learning experiences in a way that wasn’t possible before. One of the iPad tools that is often overlooked is iTunes U. Why iTunes U?

  • It is a free repository of classes and educational content
  • Students have access to content anytime and anywhere
  • Content is easily updated and changed
  • Discussion feature allows rich conversation between students

While there are a large number of free classes available on iTunes U, perhaps you should consider creating your own. With the end of the school year only a few weeks away, it seems odd to be thinking of adding new things to your teaching bag of tricks, but this is the perfect time to do so. You can use some of your summer to create your own courses. It is easy to do. Simply log into the iTunes U course manager using your Apple ID and add your content. What are the benefits to creating your own course?

  • Content is more meaningful to students
  • Content can be customized
  • Easy to create, easy to update
  • All resources are in one place: books, documents, videos, images, web links and apps

Here is the link to a Spiders course I created for my kindergarten students as well as one for teachers on Personalized Learning and another course created by a 4th grade colleague about my school and how we innovate instruction using iPads.

iTunes U allows you to customize the learning experience for your students, even the youngest ones. It is also a great way to create a learning portfolio for students. Up to 5 people can collaborate on a course so you and your colleagues can work together and share the wealth. If you aren’t comfortable creating a full course initially, create a chapter and keep adding. It is easy to update any time.

If you aren’t already using iTunes U, consider giving it a try. It will open a whole new world to your students for learning and engaging in content.

Today we will do exciting new things. Let’s get to it.

This post originally appeared on iteachwithipads.net and has been republished with permission. 

Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

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Kristi Meeuwse teaches kindergarten in Charleston, South Carolina. In January, 2011, her kindergarten class started a 1:1 iPad pilot for the school district and the results so far have been very successful. You can read more about it on her blog iteachwithipads.net.

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform

Who should monitor homeschooling?

Robert Kunzman, Indiana University, Bloomington

Should homeschool parents have complete control over the content and outcomes of their children’s education, with no external assessment or evaluation from the state?

The Texas Supreme Court is exploring this very question as they consider the case of the McIntyre family versus the El Paso school district, which involves allegations that the homeschooled McIntyre children did little or no academic work and that their parents refused to provide any evidence of such work.

After having studied homeschooling practices and policies for more than a decade, I contend that states need to find a middle ground – a modest set of expectations for homeschoolers that protects children’s basic educational interests while still leaving plenty of room for curricular flexibility.

What does the law say?

The fact is that homeschooling regulations vary widely from state to state.

In a 1994 decision in Texas Education Agency v Leeper, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that “homes in which children are taught in a bona fide manner from a curriculum designed to meet basic education goals” would qualify as private or parochial schools under the Texas compulsory education law.

However, there is no regulatory mechanism that exists in the state to assess whether basic education goals are being met by homeschoolers. In fact, Texas is one of 11 states that do not require families even to notify educational authorities that they homeschool their children.

A few states, such as North Dakota, require homeschool parents to meet certain educational requirements. Other states, such as California, stipulate that homeschoolers must study subjects similar to public schools. And some states, such as New York, require parents to submit curricular plans each year.

About half of states mandate some form of assessment through portfolios or standardized tests. But the interesting part is that most of them also have loopholes that excuse parents from actually reporting the results.

What kind of regulation makes the most sense?

In my view, most of these requirements are neither appropriate nor effective. Authorities can approve curricular plans, but such documents may have little to do with what actually occurs during the year.

Indeed, much of the value of the homeschooling approach rests in its inherent flexibility to customize learning experiences in ways that work best for individual children. While portfolios of student work at the end of the year might be revealing, they are also difficult to evaluate consistently and efficiently.

With this in mind, standardized basic skills tests hold the most potential for protecting children’s basic educational interests while leaving room for curricular flexibility.

Few of us would deny that children need basic skills of literacy and numeracy in order to function independently as adults. Certainly all the homeschool parents I’ve spoken with over the years would share this view.

I suspect that the vast majority of homeschoolers would have no trouble passing basic skills tests. And even for students who struggle with basic skills assessment, the next step would be a closer look by the state to understand the context, rather than an automatic assumption of educational neglect.

It’s also worth pointing out that basic skills requirements need not dictate the shape or method of homeschool curricula; there are countless ways to cultivate such basic skills in children – from highly structured curricula to student-directed projects to experiential learning.

What are the other skills that need to be developed?
PearlsofJannah, CC BY-NC

But is a good education only about the development of basic skills?

While the answer to this question should be obvious, there is plenty of reasonable disagreement about what other skills, knowledge and dispositions children should develop – and whether such expectations should be standardized for each child.

Regulations to protect the most vulnerable

Why insist on this sort of oversight?

After all, homeschool advocates such as the Home School Legal Defense Association and the National Home Education Research Institute claim that the average homeschooler performs significantly better than public school students on standardized tests.

The plain truth is that no such evidence exists. Wide-scale studies of homeschooler test performance have been based on volunteer samples, often with testing conditions far different from those of public school students.

And even if we knew that the “average homeschooler” compared favorably with public school students, that would say nothing about the experience of children whose parents use homeschooling as a cover for educational neglect or worse.

Homeschool advocates will also point to data showing no correlation between the amount of regulation in a particular state and the test scores reported by homeschoolers in those states.

But here again we run into the problem with volunteer samples – it seems highly unlikely that homeschool parents who neglect their responsibilities would even have their children take such tests, much less report the results.

Finding middle ground

Plenty of reasonable disagreement exists about what constitutes a great education. But we should all be able to agree that all children have a vital interest in gaining basic skills of literacy and numeracy.

Protecting those interests, while also honoring the role of parents in shaping their child’s educational experience, means finding a middle ground between intrusive regulations and having no oversight at all.

I agree that homeschool parents should be given wide latitude in the shape of their curricula and the experiences they provide for their children. But a complete lack of external accountability leaves too much room for neglect and abuse to go undetected.

A modest set of expectations such as annual reporting of enrollment and basic skills testing would go a long way toward protecting children’s interests while preserving homeschool freedoms.

The Conversation

Robert Kunzman, Professor of Curriculum Studies and Philosophy of Education, Indiana University, Bloomington

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education

False Positives: Low Student Loan Default Scores

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

Guest post by Bob Hildreth

Ask the “best” colleges about the student debt crisis and they are likely to trot out the very low default rates of their graduates, only 1 to 2 percent. Most of the defaulting students, they point out, come from for-profits. They also believe that the national default rate at 11.8 percent is at a manageable level.

But these rates hide more than they reveal. Default rates are managed to be low. It is in the best interest of everyone involved to keep them low: the government wants to keep the lid on its troubled policy, the government’s collection agents want to earn their fees by keeping debtors current, and the colleges want to keep the mother’s milk of government subsidies flowing in their direction.

The “best colleges” have little experience with debt defaults. They either don’t know or are reluctant to admit that, when it comes to the government’s loan program, colleges are all bunched together. Even for a college with zero defaults the only default rate that matters in a crisis is that of all debtors from all colleges.

The government is lenient, letting 9 months of no repayments pass before calling a student in default. Compare that to only 90 days on car loans or 3 months on mortgages. Students are also allowed to clear their defaults by switching from stricter repayment plans to easier ones. College lobbyists have convinced the government to measure default rates after only three years knowing that defaults accumulate over time. In fact, one in five students with over $15,000 in debt defaulted on his or her loan in the 10 years after graduation. That’s a 20% default rate.

The Federal Reserve of New York has created its own measure to gage student debt stress. Using consumer data the Fed measures how long students go without paying their debts. By this calculation in 2014 past due rates on student debt reached as high as 63%. 

That leaves the government like the famous emperor without clothes. If the future of our children and the solvency of our colleges were not at stake the government might have already stopped lending. But there is probably no default rate so high that the government would abandon these priorities. At the same time it is easy to guess that changes are afoot. One of the most likely targets are controls on tuition increases. That will cause a fire storm on Washington’s DuPont Circle, the home of college lobbyists. If these lobbyists can suggest a way to put clothes back on the emperor, they should speak now.

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Bob Hildreth is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Inversant, a Boston-based non-profit that helps families learn about, apply for and save for college without incurring student debt.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Teachers

The value of student and teacher input in EdTech

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Garrett Zimmer

OK so I’ve been wanting to ask this question lately.  Who do we lean on for input and advice when we have to teach or create something?  Maybe advice isn’t the right word, perhaps I’d rather use perspective.

What stakeholders are we looking to for their perspective when designing a project, a lesson, a company, or technology? As teachers, leaders, or even team members do we put stake in the perspective of everyone, or are we dismissive of some perspectives simply because they don’t hold a specific degree or level of experience.  I’ve had my share of high growth leadership experiences and I’ve found some of the best results and insights seeded from the most unlikely sources.

Let me briefly share my example.  During the very beginning of my 1st career in Sales and Marketing I sat in a strange and unique position. I believed I was gifted, charismatic, intelligent, and I even outsold most of my co-workers with years of sales experience.  My youth gave me little credibility, in spite of the fact that I’d been professionally selling since the age of 7. See I grew up in a very religious organization where going door to door selling bible philosophy for hours each week was the norm.  I experienced rejection, learned and honed abilities in ice-breaking and relating to people’s needs, but my unique perspective and experience went unrecognized, till a few years in when my talents were noticed by a great manager.

See it’s very easy to seek out someone’s views if they come with a degree, or 50 years of experience, and quite honestly I think those views should hold much more weight. But are we just as apt to dismiss the views of someone else a little lighter in experience?

Let’s take a step into the EdTech and general Startup landscape though.  Market research and understanding your market is so important for startups and getting it wrong can have devastating impact.  I’ve seen and heard of countless companies fail a launch or cost themselves so much by putting out a product that just failed to meet the needs of their intended target market. I’ve also seen many companies launch a product and spend their marketing dollars targeting one segment, and a year later shift their marketing to a whole different audience because it turns out that the product is actually perfect for the later.

It’s easy to take a top level approach when designing a piece of software, a tool, or a business product and say Who’s Buying this, let me appeal to them. Who’s backing this, or investing in it, let me appeal to them. However, are we forgetting about who is using this? I remember my good friend Shawn Q, a clinical informatics specialist, told me a story of the E-Health Management system that went over budget by something like 500% because it just didn’t work for the ground floor nurses who were supposed to be using it. This is directly resulting from not keeping the end user in the loop and conversation.

EdTech and the Education market though is so much more complex.  Education is so directly tied to every level of our lives that the stakeholders are vast and varied.  Governments, Administrators, Lobbyists, Employers, Post Secondary Institutions Teachers, Parents and Students are all Key Stakeholder groups with a public and personal interest.    Of course with so many voices in the discussion, efficiency dictates that emphasis be placed on those who pay the bills.  The Administrators, the Governments, and the Institutions.  I advocate for that voice as a strong part of the equation in the hopes that that voice resonates the needs of the rest.  But even further I support the importance of actually connecting with each stakeholder group, to make sure nothing is missing.

Some Educational tech companies seem reluctant to drive their business with Teachers and Students in mind, and instead pay homage to their own vision of what is good and right and effective. In everything from connectivity to compatibility and even down to price modeling, some still fail to match their offering to meet the needs of the people using it. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not disparaging. There are many that build Advisory Groups and speak with Teachers, and Administrators and the Thought Leaders with years and years of experience. And I do the same in my development. But how many are going to the students, to the brand new fresh out of college teachers to see what their perspective is?

What a thought Garrett, you’re CRAZY! Ask an uneducated student to give insight on a project that they can’t even begin to understand the complexity of designing, much less the complexity of the market. Wait! Ask a teacher who just stepped out of college and doesn’t understand what it’s really like in the classroom yet? CRAZY! All you would get is kids that want every game ever made loaded into the software, and teachers who want the price to be free. I say “so what!” Yes you’re going to get some of that, but you will also get a wealth of information that adds amazing value for that group. And perhaps that’s the value add, that really makes your product stand out and help millions of students and teachers.

I’m a Kid Friendly YouTube Content Creator and I can tell you 100% that there are some really amazing and intelligent kids out there who know what they want. My interactions around my own EdTech startup company with Teachers and thought leaders, both inexperienced and experienced, have yielded such amazing insights into what they need and want. By working closely with a diverse group of end users, designing for them, my product has become theirs as much as ours.  I strongly believe that by keeping all the stakeholders in the conversation, our product will solve real teacher and student concerns.

So if you’re a Teacher, an Administrator, or even an EdTech Startup yourself and are not regularly in the trenches to talk with the day to day soldiers, you’re likely missing valuable information that could make you more successful.  To reword a Famous President’s mantra:  “And so, my fellow leaders – ask not what you can do for students and teachers, ask what they can do for you.”

Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

__________

Garrett Zimmer is an experienced entrepreneur, speaker, and leader with a background in business and a passion for educational leadership.  Garrett has been awarded a Parliamentary Citation from the Government of Canada and various honors for his work with educational boards and councils across Ontario Canada. He continues to advocate and work for the future of students everywhere in the educational sector.  Garrett has spent the past 10 years as an entrepreneur and runs a popular Kid Friendly Youtube Entertainment Channel called PBJellyGames.

If you’d like to learn more about Garrett or MineGage, follow him on twitter: @PBJellyGames or visit the Minegage website www.minegage.com.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Policy & Reform, Teachers

STEM Learning Must Go Beyond Memorizing Facts and Theories

By Steven Korte

There is a growing global demand for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) professionals. At the same time, experts in science education are calling for students to become more “scientifically literate.” This call, however, is about more than filling jobs.

A basic understanding of scientific concepts, processes, and ways of thinking is critical for students to succeed in the world of today and tomorrow. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s 2014 report on the results of the international PISA 2012 science assessment, “An understanding of science and technology is central to a young person’s preparedness for life in modern society.”

This means that students must go beyond memorizing science facts and theories; they must gain experience with the tools and practices of science. Technology can help. While technology alone does not create scientific understanding, it represents a key tool for promoting inquiry investigations.

A substantial body of research confirms the positive impact of inquiry-based instruction on students’ understanding of science, including substantially higher learning when compared to traditional instruction. Further, education experts specify that technology is most effective in supporting student learning in science when it is used in an inquiry context. Indeed, blending technology into data collection, analysis and visualization as part of inquiry-based instruction has been shown to deepen students’ understanding, and increase their motivation and interest in science.

Districts transitioning to or implementing STEM programs should consider the following points:

  • Lab investigations and technology tools should be connected with classroom experiences, including lectures, readings and discussions. Lab experiences and technology are much more effective when fully integrated into the curriculum and the flow of classroom science lessons.
  • Whether teachers choose to use a structured, guided or open inquiry format, lab activities should give students the opportunity to apply the scientific process to their learning. These activities should allow them to question and investigate; make predictions; collect, analyze and interpret data; refine their questions; and engage in argumentation from evidence. This builds problem-solving and higher-order thinking skills, as well as “soft skills” such as communication and collaboration.
  • Inquiry-based investigations inside and outside the classroom should engage students in real-life scientific and engineering practices. Students should also have the opportunity to use real-world tools to make data meaningful for them while they “do” science.
  • Traditional labs can be time-consuming and classroom sets of industry equipment can be prohibitively expensive. Be sure that lab investigations and technology tools are specifically designed for instructional use to save time and money, and reduce frustration. For example, traditional cell respiration labs are typically complex and inaccurate. In a respiration lab activity built to facilitate student understanding, the setup for a carbon dioxide or oxygen gas sensor should be simple, so accurate data can collected in minutes with minimal frustration.
  • To maximize your technology investment, make sure tools such as sensors and probes are compatible with any classroom environment and work on a variety of platforms, including iPads, Chromebooks, Android tablets, Mac and Windows computers, and netbooks. In addition, make certain the tools match the ability levels of your students.
  • A key part of the scientific process is the sharing, analysis and discussion of data. Consider how students’ data will be transmitted from tools, such as sensors, to their computer or tablet. Will it be done via a USB or wireless connection? Will the data be transmitted directly to the student’s device or will it go to the cloud first? Can students do this themselves or will they need teacher assistance? Allowing students to get their data faster gives them more time for analysis and discussion, which is key to building scientific understanding.
  • When possible, consider investing in multi-measure sensors that allow for the collection of multiple, simultaneous measurements in a single sensor, e.g. for areas such weather, advanced chemistry, or water quality. This not only helps keep costs down, but also helps conserve instructional time by reducing the time it takes to set up sensors and collect the data.
  • If inquiry-based instruction is new to your district, conduct professional development workshops that guide teachers to begin with more highly-structured activities and then move students, over time, to open-ended investigations where they take more responsibility for planning their activities. Each stage of this transition should informed by teachers’ assessments of students’ readiness to complete learner-led investigations.
  • Instructional resources and professional development workshops should also provide suggestions on ways to scaffold student capabilities. This will ensure that teachers can provide multiple levels of guidance and support for investigations. It will also help teachers to select the level of support that best matches their students’ skills and experiences, so they can accomplish challenging tasks.

Across the country and around the world, teachers are effectively implementing inquiry-based science instruction that takes advantage of technology tools for collecting, analyzing and visualizing data. When students “do” science, rather than simply read about it, they deepen their understanding, they develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills, and they retain more content knowledge. They are also more motivated to learn and to continue building their science literacy. This is not only critical for students who decided to pursue STEM careers, but also for life in the modern world.

Steven Korte is the CEO of PASCO Scientific, a developer of innovative teaching and learning solutions for K–12 and higher education since 1964.

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Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform, Teachers

Another Failed Charter: Do These Schools have a Future?

In February of 2013, the Einstein Montessori School in Orlando became a casualty of the charter school experiment. State officials closed the school that had 40 students ranging from third through eighth grade. The school promoted itself as a specialty institution for dyslexic students but teachers told media outlets that there was no curriculum in place, no computers and no school library. Despite these and other red flags the school remained in operation longer than it should have because Florida law currently only allows for immediate school closures for safety, welfare and health issues.

Of course parents of the students at the school are outraged but so are taxpayers. Einstein Montessori received close to $165,000 in state money for operations – money that cannot be recovered or redirected. That number is just a drop in the bucket when compared to the total $287 million in state money that four failed Orlando-area charter schools received in recent years. Consider what that number looks like on a state scale. Now consider it on a national level. With stories like the failure of Einstein Montessori in the headlines, it is no wonder parents and other community members angrily attend charter school meetings and protest against their opening.

Despite this negativity, I’m on the proponent side of charter schools. Katie Ash recently posted the results from a charter school research study out of Stanford that found 63 percent of charter schools outperformed public school counterparts in mathematics. The report looked at schools in New York City but similar results exist across the country. I think that in addition to providing quality education overall, the competitive vibe that charters bring with them elevates the performance of all public schools. Traditional district schools are faced with more pressure to perform in order to keep the brightest students and this translates to higher levels of innovation by administration and teachers. I think that the future of K-12 learners is brighter as a result of the inception of charter schools but only if these schools are continually monitored for quality, strength in management and prioritization of student needs.

For charter schools to succeed in the future, there needs to be more transparency. States have long held a somewhat laissez faire approach to charters, allowing them freedom to operate how they see fit and not stepping in until mistakes are beyond repair. For charter schools to fulfill their mission – which I believe is to add value to the traditional public school system and raise the educational bar for all K-12 students – they need to consider their presence a partnership with the state. Since the first charter schools began sprouting up in Minnesota in 1991, the battle to find balance between accountability and innovation through autonomy has existed; stories like the ones out of Orlando show that not enough progress has been made in this regard. Educators and legislators need to realize the success of each depends on the other and approach charter school goals with this mentality.

For charters to achieve optimal success for students, the public also needs more information on what these schools actually are and how to heighten the public school education experience. While most educators recognize charter schools as public entities, community members often confuse charter schools with for-profit educational management organizations, or EMOs. This leads to an automatic feeling of resentment as students are viewed as a business opportunity. These misconceptions mean that charter schools are often viewed in a negative light for the wrong reasons. As more parents, students and community members understand the benefits of well-run charter schools, better outcomes for all are possible.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Equity, Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

Economy Improves, School Spending Continue to Fall – So What Gives?

As the news headlines regarding the current U.S. economy continue to improve, there is one area that is still feeling the squeeze from the recession years: K-12 public school spending. A report this month from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that 34 states are contributing less funding on a per student basis than they did prior to the recession years. Since states are responsible for 44 percent of total education funding in the U.S., these dismal numbers mean a continued crack down on school budgets despite an improving economy.

In practical terms, these findings make sense. Property taxes pay much of public education costs and that revenue source is still low. Overall, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that districts collected just over 2 percent lower on property taxes ending in March than in the year before. Furthering the problem is the fact that while states have been cut throat in reducing spending, they have not been as vigilant in raising revenue sources through taxes and fees.

Loss of federal aid to states is also a problem. Even if a state does not need emergency federal funds for specific education needs, they must use school money to cover the cost of natural disasters or other projects that are no longer receiving aid from the federal government.

In extreme cases, like in Philadelphia and Chicago, individual districts have had to tap into other money and reserves to cover the basics of public education in their areas. Take a look at some of the most-telling numbers from the CBPP report on school spending:

14. This is the number of consecutive quarters state revenues have increased, despite stagnant or reduced school spending.

1.3. This is the percent that state funding fell for elementary and secondary schools from last school year.

20. This is the percent that Oklahoma and Alabama have sliced on student spending since the recession began in 2008.

13. This is the number of states, including Wisconsin and California, that have cut school spending budgets by more than 10 percent since the recession began.

15. This represents the number of states that have lower school spending budgets than they did one year ago.

72. This is the amount in dollars that New Mexico increased its per student spending for the current school year. It may seem like a bright spot, but barely dents the $960+ the state has cut per student in just the past five years alone.

20,100. This is the number of teaching jobs that were added in August – but that figure is still over 320,000 less than education jobs in 2008.

12. This is the percent that funding to low-income Title I schools has decreased since 2010, from $17 billion to $15 billion.

11. This is the percent that special education funding has been slashed since 2010, from $13.5 billion to $12 billion.

57. This is the amount of administrators that believe they will need to reduce class sizes this school year to offset budget cuts.

16. This is the number of states that cut pre-K educational per student funding in the 2011 – 2012 school year and 27 had to reduce enrollment numbers.

What do the numbers all mean?

The fact that state revenues are on the upswing but K-12 spending is still at recession-levels is disheartening. It seems that a reprioritization needs to take place in the 34 states that are still in the red when it comes to per student spending today as opposed to 2008. Less state spending on education certainly affects the learning experience but it also impacts other areas of the economy. Unemployed teachers and administrators have less to pump back into the economy and the viscous cycle of K-12 underfunding is furthered.

If we cannot find the funding for our public schools how can we expect things like the achievement gap to close or high school graduation rates to rise? It was understandable that budgets had to be slashed when the bottom dropped out of the economy but now that we are in a more stable place, it is time to get back to funding what matters most: the education of our K-12 students.

Why do you think that per student spending is still falling?

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

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