Another perspective on school improvement

 by Olga LaPlante

Right now, school budgets all around the state, if not the country, are being considered, discussed, laid out, revisited, and whatnot in pursuit of pleasing the fiscal gods and making ends meet somehow. If your district is not planning to make cuts, you are a lucky exception.
There are public debates held over the proposals, and mostly if not solely it's  adults' business. Why? Because we foot the bill and of course we know better.
I found this blog post this morning and I believe that kids should be a little – or maybe much – more involved in the process. They may not understand politics, but they definitely are capable – maybe not willing – to articulate what works for them and what doesn't. I think that as leaders and administrators, adults do end up making the decisions regardless of preceding procedures. What is truly important is that the adults take the chance to listen to what students have to say, leverage their talents and take the risk of believing that students do know a little about their own learning, and it's not all top-down as usual that is going to solve this mess. What do you think?

What's in your school's way to a brighter future?

by Olga LaPlante

This survey from Dangerously Irrelevant may be helpful when you are trying to identify areas for change in the future to ensure that your school/district is making more progress than it is currently. Check it out and offer your responses. Even though it is called "3 minute survey" it doesn't take nearly that long.
3 Minute Survey

Toughest Jobs to Fill

by Olga LaPlante

According to this article, these are the toughest jobs to fill: engineers, nurses, technicians, teachers and sales representatives. Who would have thought?

Well, the engineer bit is quite expected. Lots to learn, a lot of students prefer liberal arts (although the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, do you agree?), and most importantly, employers want an experienced and talented engineer, trained in a variety of fields - who has the money and time for that? - and as baby boomers are retiring there will be more open positions.

The second job, according to this article, is nurses. The problem with these guys is there are not enough nurse educators to train enough people to fill in the slots. How curious is that?

Teachers - it's pretty clear, low salaries, higher education degrees, but I would like to know where that shortage is, just in case. With the infamous "cliff in funding" coming in two years, that's definitely a good thing to know.

All of the above are reasonable, and the lack or hardships of higher education are somewhat present throughout the top 2 and the fourth one (teachers). But this bit came as a surprise and wake-up call at the same time. I actually was in a discussion around that last summer when I was in Russia. My parents' neighbor has a 13-year kid, who is not particularly interested in schooling. One might say, that 13 is too early to get sleepless about the college costs, but he is already considering options for his child. Truth is, unless you are among the top half students, chances are you won't get into a good university or college for free - yes, there is such thing as free higher education in Russia. So, the dilemma he is dealing with is this. He runs a business, some construction or some manufacturing, I never was curious enough to pry, and he didn't volunteer, and he says it's so hard to find a good, experienced technician (such as crane operators, or welders). It's impossible to find a young reliable technician period. Why? Because the young people are after quick, clean (white-collar) and "important" jobs, like accountants, financial folks (working in banks, even if you are a teller, is soooo prestigious!), and lawyers. A lot of them are struggling to find a job now. But few people decide to do the grunt work.

The article supports the same view:

Like workers in skilled trades, technicians are trained at vocational schools, and they're in short supply because so many high school students are encouraged to go to four-year colleges instead.

How does that sit with the intentions of the DOE in Maine to make every student go on to college? Is it best intentions or denial of reality?

What are your thoughts?

CEOs Without College Degree

A Vision for Schools of the Future

You might not agree with all of Marion Brady's suggestions, if any of them, but I hope it is a starting point for thinking about what is important for schooling in the future. Check the article out below, and if you wish, comment on what you would like to see. What will make better schools and communities . . . short of more money? ~ Jim

*Originally published in the Orlando Sentinel. Published here by permission of the author.

Cheaper by the dozen
12 ways to save money at high schools

By Marion Brady
May 7, 2005

"Everybody wants the schools to be better; but almost nobody wants them to be different." ~ Joe Graba

Cheap! Maybe that's the key that'll open the door to educational change!

The appeal of lower taxes almost always trumps the appeal of higher-quality education, so the trick is to figure out how to educate better with less money -- a whole lot less money -- so much less money that state legislators won't be able to resist removing enough bureaucratic barriers to allow experimentation. High-school reform is on the front burner right now, so let me suggest some ways to save money at that level. Those who think quality lies in doing better what we're already doing will be appalled by the suggestions, but I agree with Joe Graba, former Minnesota deputy commissioner of education: "We can't get the schools we need by improving the schools we have."

So, starting with a clean slate, and thinking cheap, here are a dozen proposals:

No. 1: Take the phrase "neighborhood school" seriously and design around it. Choose local adult-student steering committees to locate, rent or lease centrally located community centers, churches, houses or other facilities.

No. 2: Set maximum school size at 30 to 40 students for morning classes, another 30 to 40 for afternoon or evening classes.

No. 3: Hire a three- or four-person teacher team, based on interviews and the team's written program proposal.

No. 4: Right up front, spend whatever is necessary to test and fix sight and hearing problems. It's a waste of money to try to educate kids who're functioning at less than peak potential because they don't hear or see well.

No. 5: Find out who each kid really is. It mystifies me how, with straight faces, we can simultaneously sing the praises of "American individualism" while forcing all kids through the same narrow program. For a fraction of the cost of present standardized subject-matter tests, every kid's distinctive strengths and weaknesses can be explored using inexpensive, proven inventories of interests, abilities, personalities and learning styles.

No. 6: Eliminate grade levels. Start with where kids are, help them go as far as they're able, and give them a diploma describing what they've done and can do.

No. 7: Eliminate textbooks. They're relics of a bygone era, cost a lot of money, the day they're printed they're out of date, and they're the main support of simplistic ideas about what it means to teach and learn.

No. 8: Stop chopping knowledge up into "subjects." Knowledge is seamless, and the brain processes it most efficiently when it's integrated.

No. 9: Push responsibility for teaching specific skills and knowledge on to users of those skills and knowledge -- employers. Specialized, occupation-related instruction such as that now being offered in magnet schools will never be able to keep up with either the variety or the rate of change. Employers will resist, so sweeten the pot with subsidies as necessary. (A bonus: Apprenticeship and intern arrangements will go a long way toward smoothing the transition into responsible adulthood.)

No. 10: Eliminate school buses, food services, athletic departments, athletic fields, cops on campus, non-teaching administrators, attendance officers, extracurricular activities. (And add into the tax savings much of the $50,000-plus it costs each year to keep poorly educated kids locked up in prisons.)

No. 11: Strip away all the non-academic roles and responsibilities state legislators piled on schools during the 20th century. Create independent municipal support systems for neighborhood-level, multi-age programs for art, dance, drama, sports and anything else "extracurricular" for which a local need or interest is apparent.

No. 12: Drastically shrink central administrations. Have them coordinate the forming of teacher teams, and relieve those teams of paper shuffling, resource acquisition and other non-instructional tasks.

School doesn't need to take all day every day. Suggestions 5 through 9 will make it possible to accomplish more in three hours than is now being accomplished in six. The special-interest, personal-learning project, which every student should always have under way can be done on her and his own time.

Not incidentally, I'm concerned with matters in addition to functional schools -- the creation of a sense of neighborhood and community, the expansion of community-service activities, and vastly increased contact between generations. Cutting out all the non-academic responsibilities will open up time for all kinds of fascinating, new, growth-producing activity.

Don't like my proposal? Dream up your own. But keep another Joe Graba insight in mind: "Everybody wants the schools to be better; but almost nobody wants them to be different."

What do you think? Have a dream of your own?

Earlier Post on Marion Brady's Views

I am a dinosaur . . .

I came across the writing of Maine teacher, James G. Fabiano, this evening, amazed that I hadn't noticed his writing before this. In "A Dinosaur of Education," there is an opportunity to appreciate the perspective of long-time teachers.

What do you think?

A Dinosaur of Education Blog
Other Writing by JGF
Life Without Teaching

Teaching in 1947 . . . "The Fun They Had"

Read "The Fun They Had" by Isaac Isimov, and then view this old teacher training film. Discuss.

Skype as a Tech Tool (or more Joys of Skype)

by David Trask

Following up on the recent post on Skype, today I had a Skype experience that was worth sharing. One of my colleagues at another school was having difficulty with getting something to work correctly with ARD. At first we tried the cellphone route, but holding on to the cellphone (even with a headset)...typing...and problems with a weak signal forced us to try another means of communication. I have a SkypeOut account with unlimited calling in the US and Canada...so I simply called his classroom phone. This worked well for a bit when we realized that it would be even easier to do a direct Skype to Skype call to his laptop. (a Macbook Pro) Talk about the ultimate speakerphone! I was able to talk him through the issue and even send some screenshots through the chat feature while we talked. Skype allowed us to bridge the miles and get some quality work done troubleshooting a computer problem. Imagine the ramifications for kids working collaboratively on a project from afar. If you haven't checked out Skype...you should! Skype.com