In the span of the last two weeks, three articles were published about the role of for-profit corporations in K-12 online learning. Individually and collectively, they are serious and comprehensive pieces of investigative journalism and they all reach similar conclusions and raise serious concerns about the role of these companies, especially K12, Inc., in the public education landscape.

I encourage you to read all three articles.

Virtual schools are multiplying, but some question their educational value (Washington Post, November 26, 2011)

K12 has hired lobbyists from Boise to Boston and backed political candidates who support school choice in general and virtual education in particular. From 2004 to 2010, K12 gave about $500,000 in direct contributions to state politicians across the country, with three-quarters going to Republicans, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

How Online Learning Companies Bought America’s Schools (The Nation, December 5, 2011)

Corbett, a Republican who rode the Tea Party election wave in 2010, supports a major voucher expansion that is working its way through the state legislature. The expansion would be a windfall for companies like K12 Inc., which currently operates one Pennsylvania school under the limited charter law on the books. According to disclosures reported in Business Week, Pennsylvania’s Agora Cyber Charter School—K12 Inc.’s online school, which allows students to take all their courses at home using a computer—generated $31.6 million for K12 Inc. in the past academic year.

Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools (The New York Times, December 12, 2011)

The New York Times has spent several months examining this idea, focusing on K12 Inc. A look at the company’s operations, based on interviews and a review of school finances and performance records, raises serious questions about whether K12 schools — and full-time online schools in general — benefit children or taxpayers, particularly as state education budgets are being slashed.

I’m not opposed to online learning in K-12 education. In fact, I’d say I’m rather bullish on the possibilities and affordances of online learning, especially for children with limited opportunities or access to meaningful learning environments. But, with some forms of educational research, we view triangulation as an evidentiary hallmark. So, while I was critical of the policy brief issued by the National Educational Policy Center, I can’t read those three articles and not conclude that we are in desperate need of oversight and regulation here. Dr. Justin Bathon’s legal brief and model legislation is a great starting point.

The stories our leaders tell us matter, probably almost as much as the stories our parents tell us as children, because they orient us to what is, what could be, and what should be; to the worldviews they hold and to the values they hold sacred.

In an opinion piece in the New York Times, Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University, argues that President Obama has failed to tell the story he needed to offer in order to effectively lead the country through these turbulent times. Obama, according to Westen, campaigned under a pretty clear narrative of “hope,” but has never really fully developed or told the story that “…would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant narrative…”

With the Iowa-tailored version of the widely viewed Did You Know? videos, Scott McLeod (with some help from XPlane and others) is trying to re-frame the dominant narrative around schooling through a modern lens. Scott’s a highly-respected colleague and a dear friend. But, while I’m on a roll in airing professional disagreements with dear colleagues/friends, I thought I’d offer a critique of the video.

Here’s the logic of the video, as best I see it:

• Computers were invented; EVERYTHING changed.
• There are a ton of cell phones being used in the world.
• There are a whole lot of people using social media (babies are tweeting in utero!).
• There’s a lot of information online.
• A lot of people own a lot of gadgets.
• Iowa is struggling to keep up.
• Lots of kids are graduating high school, but not college.
• Jobs, especially in growth areas, will require a college education.
• Iowa’s schools are struggling to keep up, too.
• Lots of low-level mental work; i.e. basic skills instruction.
• Not many kids in Iowa are taking online courses.
• Technology expenditures are down.
• Some Iowa schools have made some significant changes (1:1 computing  + virtual reality technology?), but we can do better…

More succinctly, the narrative of the video boils down to:

Lots of people are using lots of technology –> Our world is increasingly connected and our economy is increasingly “global” –> Therefore, our schools need to integrate technology more and focus on “higher-level” thinking skills.

(NOTE: that last part is admittedly sketchy; the “shift” that should “happen” is a little unclear)

I think there’s a huge gap in the logic. That is, the emphasis of the first part of the video is on social media usage and information abundance, but the second part jumps immediately to issues of education with a focus on outcomes. That Iowans are disproportionately not graduating college is evidence that Iowans are not keeping up with societal changes (with an emphasis on social media usage and information abundance)? Really?

I could nitpick various statements throughout the video, but my critique is more macro. I’ve written about this before, but, to reiterate, I think the gist of the argument is misguided. It’s the wrong story…

IF our schools need to “shift” (again, we’re left to assume that the “shift” means something much more technology-centric?), it is NOT because that will help us be more competitive in a global economy. As I wrote earlier, “If you make that argument, you have to believe that one of the fundamental purposes of schooling is, in fact, to prepare kids for the workforce.  That’s not at all something I believe.” Furthermore, this “global competitiveness” argument doesn’t resonate with the public, let alone educational policymakers. These days, I’m not sure anything resonates with educational policymakers beyond test scores, but what about something a little more immediate and obvious? What about learning? Gosh, we can all get behind learning, can’t we?

So, with learning as the focus, why do our schools need to “shift?”:

1. Because public schooling exists to prepare young people to be productive and engaged citizens in a deliberative democracy, and, increasingly, civic engagement happens in “hybrid” spaces. Despite what Malcolm Gladwell would have us believe, social media has fundamentally changed the nature of political engagement. One need only look at how the Obama campaign leveraged social media in winning the 2008 presidential election and, of course, at how social media has played a major role in political uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, etc.
2. Because computers allow young people to learn in a more integrated way through, well, computing. Want kids to learn math? Have them take a real computer science class. As Gary Stager wrote, “If mathematics is a way of making sense of the world, computing is a way of making mathematics.” Teach kids programming, and they necessarily learn logic and argumentation and math. As they improve their logic and aptitude for argumentation, watch how their writing improves. Furthermore, logic and argumentation are the basic competencies needed for deliberation. Again, from Gary Stager, “[c]omputer science should be taught as a basic skill.”
3. Because learning has ALWAYS been social and collaboration has ALWAYS been an important skill (or, more accurately, IMHO, a set of skills), but the modern Web exponentially amplifies the possibilities for collaboration and social learning.
4. Because now learners don’t always have to go to schools or libraries or anywhere specific to learn. Actually, that’s always been true, but the modern Web does change our assumptions about time and space for learning.

In other words, IF we are going to rethink schooling in and for the 21st Century, it should be based on what technology affords for learning. It’s that simple.

I understand that the Did You Know? videos are intended to be conversation starters. But, I think they tell the wrong story. Instead of negativity or even fear mongering (“We’re not keeping up!”), let’s tell a more positive story about affordances and possibilities.

Senate Bill 5, also known as The Amy Hestir Student Protection Act, signed into law on July 14 in Missouri, goes into effect on August 28. Among lots of other provisions, the law stipulates that:

• No teacher shall establish, maintain, or use a work-related internet site unless such site is available to school administrators and the child’s legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian.
• No teacher shall establish, maintain, or use a nonwork-related internet site which allows exclusive access with a current or former student.

A Huffington Post piece on the law includes quotes from Dr. Charol Shakeshaft in support of the law. Dr. Shakeshaft is a professor and chairwoman of the Department of Educational Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is THE leading expert on issues related to educator sexual misconduct, having researched and written extensively on that topic (just do a Google search for “Charol Shakeshaft”) and having served as an expert witness in dozens of cases.

Charol is also my colleague, mentor and one of my dearest friends.

Yesterday, she sent me an email with a link to the the Huffington Post piece and wrote:

I’d appreciate your thougts on this  (I know we probably disagree)…

To which I responded with:

Yeah, we mostly disagree.

Here are my rambling thoughts…

I think they’re throwing the baby out with the bath water and trying to herd cats all at once…

Why are we legislating against the medium and not the behavior(s)? Before computer-mediated communication was really possible, didn’t teachers use paper and pens/pencils to get private messages to students? Did we ever ban paper and pens/pencils? Lots of inappropriate behaviors occurred in band rooms and cars and… We don’t ban those. Aren’t there ways to draft sexual harassment policies to cover the behaviors that policymakers are concerned about without singling out social media” or the Internet or…? Shouldn’t we encourage educators to model good/positive digital citizenship instead?

Isn’t this also a slippery slope? Why are teachers being singled out? If they’re really concerned about this stuff, shouldn’t it apply to all public officials/state actors who work with kids?

How does this apply for teachers engaged in distance learning? Blackboard allows “exclusive access” to students… Even if an administrator and a legal guardian has access to the Bb site, there’s no way for the administrator or legal guardian to access private communications between a teacher and a student done through Bb.

What about this scenario?: a teacher is a big fan of, oh, I don’t know, let’s say surfing. She/he becomes a member of a site built for surfers by surfers. The site includes articles about surfing, discussion boards, etc. It’s built on a platform like Ning, which has many “social” features, including messaging of other members. If a student is also interested in surfing and becomes a member, does the teacher have to quit/leave the site?

Oh, and BTW, per COPPA and other laws, most social networking sites are limited to children over 13. So, that should take care of itself for kids younger than that.

To which she responded:

I agree with most everything you say. But, I do believe we make distinctions. For instance, schools do have rules about sending notes to students or calling them on private phones. Not that they should or shouldn’t, but one approach to this issue is that schools attempt to regulate behavior of teachers. For instance, don’t take your student out alone to a restaurant. That’s not the same thing as saying you can’t eat or go to restaurants.

My point is that there are lots of ways to do social media with students. For teachers to say that this completely keeps them from ever having anything to do with students on social media isn’t accurate.

And yes, I do believe that we need to target the behaviors. But one of the big behaviors is using social media to groom students. My response is that we need education. How about state bills that require everyone to understand what sexual misconduct is by teachers, how it happens, what to look out for? We could even do that through social media.

So, I asked Dr. Shakeshaft if we could continue the discussion here, in public, where others could chime in. She graciously agreed.

So, here we go…

Thoughts?

“This is a game about power, and I think you have a vacuum on one side…She’s concluded — and I think with some wisdom — that there’s really no countervailing force that is well-funded, is well-organized. What I think she wants to build is an organization that can really step up and amass political support and play hardball.”

-Joel Klein, on the Political Education of Michelle Rhee

There is very little about educational policy on which Joel Klein and I agree. But, Klein’s point about Michelle Rhee and her Students First organization is spot on. There is a particular policy agenda that is carrying the day in education, and Michelle Rhee is quickly becoming the face and voice of that agenda. The early $uce$$ of her “movement” is unsurprising because it *is* the dominant agenda. Furthermore, as Klein points out, there is no organized counternarrative.

Here “we” are at a conference organized by educators (and students) for educators (and students), all brought together around a common set of axioms. I can’t say for sure that everyone here completely buys in to those axioms, but to me they exactly frame the counternarrative to Rhee et al. (e.g. Gates, Broad, etc.).

So, can Educon catalyze a movement? Can we use this collective experience to truly organize a counternarrative to the dominant educational policy agenda? If so, how? We’re not well-funded, but we sure are well-organized…

What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy. – John Dewey (1900, p. 3)

I am by no means the best or wisest parent. However, lately, I find myself thinking about what we have been able to provide for my son before he even enrolls in kindergarten. He lives in a house full of books and other print reading material (the floor in his room is often invisible under a pool of books). He has his own laptop. We talk to him, lots. He talks to us, incessantly (I mean that in the best way; I think). Though he was eligible to begin kindergarten this fall (he turned 5 in June and the cutoff date in VA is October 1), we chose to enroll him in an amazing preschool for another year.

In other words, our son (and daughter, but she’s only one) is awash in social capital and cultural capital. We have provided him with a literacy-rich home environment and we have engaged in LOTS of what Hart & Risley (1995) call “extra talk.”

As a result, when he begins kindergarten in Fall 2011, he will be more than “ready.” In fact, I am confident that he will be much more “ready” than most other kids starting kindergarten at the same time as him. This phenomenon ( i.e. the contribution of home literacy environments or literacy-rich homes to differences in school readiness) is well documented, and I suspect well within the conscious mind of many educators (especially elementary educators). Kids show up to school with hugely different levels of “readiness,” and those differences relate strongly to subsequent educational outcomes.

***

A lesser known phenomenon is the seasonality of student achievement. I live in the world of educational research and question a lot of what passes these days as “evidence” in education. However, there are a few studies that I point to regularly as of high quality and meaningful. One of those studies is written about in an article called Schools, Achievement, and Inequality: A Seasonal Perspective by Alexander, Entwisle and Olson (2001).The authors used data from schoolchildren in Baltimore, where kids took achievement tests not just in the spring, but also in the fall. The figure below is a rough approximation of what they found with respect to reading achievement.

It is noteworthy that during the academic year (between fall and spring), all kids gained about the same. That is, the slopes of the lines between fall and spring are nearly identical across all three SES groups. It is during the summer months where the gains (or losses) are disparate across SES groups (i.e. the spring-to-fall slopes are significantly different). “Lower SES youth start out behind (i.e. the baseline differences are significant) and during the school year they keep up, but during the summer periods their gains fall short of those registered by upper SES youth” (p. 182). As a result of starting behind and the “summer learning loss,” achievement gaps are exacerbated over time.

This is not to say that families and communities are the only holders of the keys to student learning. In fact, the Alexander, Entwisle & Olson study points to the extremely important compensatory role schools play.

Schools do matter, and they matter the most when support for academic learning outside school is weak. School-based public resources do not completely offset the many and varied advantages that accrue to children of privilege by virtue of private family resources outside of school (e.g. Coleman, 1990)…The powerful role of schools in fostering achievement of all children is one lesson informed by a seasonal perspective on learning.

One might even go so far as to suggest, based on this study, that, on the whole, schools do a reasonably good job of serving all children, not just those of wealthy families. That is, schools are not “failing.” Berliner and Biddle (1996) refer to this as The Manufactured Crisis.

***

I don’t know if we qualify as mid- or high-SES, but I know we’re not low-SES. So, what does our son do over the summer? He goes to camps: nature camp, pottery camp, general day camp, etc. We travel over the summer, too. In other words, my son’s learning does not stop because school is not in session.

Thus, at the risk of sounding terribly elitist, I want for every child in our nation what my son has. For that to happen, we cannot and must not talk about school reform without talking about equality of opportunities for kids outside of K-12 classrooms. If we are serious about closing the achievement gap, we need to:

1. Commit, first and foremost, to high-quality preschool for all kids.
2. Consider policy efforts to improve the literacy richness of homes of children in low-income families.
3. Think seriously about shifting to year-round schooling, especially in low-income communities (NOTE: I’m not necessarily talking about extending the school year beyond 180 days; rather, I’m talking about shifting away from school calendars based on the agrarian calendar).
4. Make schools community centers that are open beyond the school day, where kids can regularly access media centers and computer labs.

So, while policy makers are arguing over labor matters and the intricacies of school governance, and while we’re all waiting for superman, my hope is that local communities commit themselves to providing meaningful learning opportunities for all children beyond what is provided during the traditional school day.

Those with whom I network for learning purposes through Twitter, blogs, Nings, etc. are largely members of an amorphous educational technology community.  That community is fond of throwing around terms like “change” and “reform” connected to schools or education and most often the “change” or “reform” is largely related to advances in technology. The gist of the argument is that technology has changed the world we live in but not schools so schools need to catch up (or something to that effect).  Schools are becoming “dangerously irrelevant,” right Scott?

There are also frequent references to those other educators who do not “get it.”  Yet, it is never clear, at least to me, what the “it” is that other educators are supposed to “get.” There are references to School 2.0, Classroom 2.0,etc.  Significant technology integration is certainly implied, but even that is a loosely defined concept.

Many of the same individuals with whom I learn and interact online will be attending Educon 2.2. at the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) in Philadelphia this coming weekend.  That event will involve lots of conversations, largely around technology and the future of education. Chris Lehmann, the principal of SLA, has long been clear that Educon is not an educational technology conference.  In fact, the conference is guided by five axioms which you see below:

That’s not a bad starting point for framing the “it” that “others” are supposed to “get,” but like all standards, they are vague and high-minded.  I believe “we” (myself included) would all do well to think long and hard about what “it” is that “we” are aiming for and figure out a way to articulate “it.”

What troubles me more than an overall lack of an operationalized vision of the change that “we” want are the many flawed arguments made in favor of “it.” That is, to justify a vision that I argue is not clear from the start, there are a host of arguments being made within the amorphous ed. tech. community that are logically problematic. I summarize and briefly discuss some of those arguments below:

The “Digital Natives” Argument – yes, I’m well aware that “we” have largely denounced the digital natives-immigrants dichotomy, and I’m on board with that.  However, I see a new, related line of thinking that is equally problematic.  It has to do with the notion that kids are really comfortable with technology, they use it a lot, so we should bury them in it at schools too.  When the recent Kaiser Family Foundation report was released, it spread like wildfire among “our” networks/communities.  Here are the money lines: Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).  And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

Well, there you go. Given *that*, how can we NOT make our schools more “relevant?”  HOLD ON…what’s the logic there?  Just because that’s what kids do on their own time, that’s how we should engage them in schools?  Why is that exactly?  Maybe, actually, what we need to be doing is using that evidence to argue for maximizing face-to-face time.  In fact, this gives me even more reason to argue for the “flipped classroom” model that you see discussed here.  Let’s “disrupt” or “interrupt” kids time online by, where necessary, providing content or instruction via digital means so that when they come to school they can learn to interact with each other and learn socially while face-to-face.

The Economics Argument – this is the argument based, often, in the works of (non-economists) Daniel Pink, Richard Florida, etc.  It is a big part of presentations done by folks I admire greatly, including my friend/colleague Scott McLeod.  Watch and/or listen to Scott’s presentation to the NEA and you’ll hear a lot about the changing nature of the workforce and how we need to reform schools to meet those changing needs.

I get that, kind of.  Here’s the problem.  If you make that argument, you have to believe that one of the fundamental purposes of schooling is, in fact, to prepare kids for the workforce.  That’s not at all something I believe.  For me, first and foremost, schools are in the business of preparing kids to be active, productive citizens in a deliberative democratic society.  Schooling for citizenship and deliberation, not employment.  I want to remove all references to “workplace” or “workforce” or “economy” from any and all school mission statements.

If I argue or advocate for technology integration in schools, it is based on the idea that we need to recognize that the Web is causing us to rethink what citizenship means and is increasingly becoming a space where important deliberation happens (see e.g. the ways in which social media impacted the last presidential election in this country).  We need to help kids become deliberative  and to express their ideas and thoughts in productive ways in spaces that are digital and PUBLIC.

That said, building upon my notion of maximizing face-to-face time, let’s think about ways to use school time to foster civic engagement and deliberative habits. As far as I’m concerned, every kid should be required to take a debate class.

The Business Argument – this argument was bolstered by the publishing of Disruptive Class which is based on the theory of disruptive innovation developed by of one of the book’s authors, Clayton Christensen.  The general premise there is that technology will increasingly allow us to individualize/customize learning and makes learning possible anywhere/anytime and that is an innovation that will disrupt the model of formal schooling as we know it here…unless, of course, schools figure out a way to head off that disruption at the pass.

Let’s say we accept the book’s premise. Then what?  It was NEVER clear to me in reading the book what it is that schools need to do in order to not get “disrupted.”  Are student-centric learning technologies that customize learning the disruption or the prescription against disruption? I may be missing that, and if so, I’m willing to listen.  But, if “we” include the “Disrupting Class” thinking in “our” arguments, “we” need to be prepared to then tie the vision of the “it” that “they” are supposed to “get” to the logic of disruptive innovation.  In other words, it’s not enough just to say that the current model of schooling is going to be disrupted.

That said, I’m not accepting the book’s premise, largely because I’m missing the last link  in the chain of logic.  I also still don’t understand why the author’s went after K-12 education and not higher education.  Higher education is a choice (to a degree). Up to a certain age, though, public schooling is mandatory.  It’s also, for most people, a public enterprise and not a profit-driven one, and I don’t think the theory of disruptive innovation works in that context.  For a more thoughtful critique of Disrupting Class, I encourage you to read this critique by Andy Zucker of the Concord Consortium.

The “Bored Kid” Anecdote – OK, @bengrey, your turn under the bus. So, lots of attention was given to the story of Aaron Iba, the now former CEO of AppJet, the company that created EtherPad.  Ben wrote about Aaron’s story here.  Lisa Nielsen wrote about it here and here.  Aaron’s story is not a new one.  And, I know Ben and Lisa and others know that.  In fact, that was pretty much their point.  Since forever, kids have been bored in schools.

Well, guess what?  For all of the Aaron’s out there, I can point to a…well…me. School worked beautifully for me.  I’m the perfect anecdote for maintaining the status quo in schools.  I loved school. I got to learn, largely by myself, and that’s what I liked.  Teachers soothed my ego and made me feel smart and great and I achieved at high levels. So, why isn’t anyone blogging about me and how schools work?

Additionally, the Gladwellian tactic of finding a case to fit an a priori belief is not compelling to me.  I think case studies can be immensely interesting and meaningful, but only if done thoroughly and systematically.  Gladwell gives us bits and pieces of his cases and, as a result, we can’t know how well that case “fits” his theory because we don’t know enough about the case.  Same with Aaron Iba. Do we really have enough information here to know the whole story? To conclude that the schooling system failed Aaron? Writing a good case study is hard to do.  When done well, though, they are deep, rich narratives that are full of meaning; they aren’t meant to be “generalizable” though.

One last question about the “bored kid” anecdote: what makes you think the “it,” the “new” school or modes of learning that you apparently have in mind though haven’t quite fully articulated will be not boring for everyone?

In sum, then, I think “we” are putting broken carts before the horses. “We” are concentrating too much on the “why change” argument without first fully and clearly articulating what it is “we” want from schools.  Furthermore, the “why change” arguments, I argue (meta?), are fundamentally flawed.

There are lots of reasons for the institution of schooling to be transformed.  Likewise, there are lots of reasons to consider the affordances of ubiquitous computing for learning.  I ask you to help me think through those reasons in ways that are well-informed and logical…especially those of you with whom I hope to have fully maximized face-to-face experiences this weekend at Educon. I look forward to deliberating with many of you there!

]]> http://edinsanity.com/2010/01/29/the-logic-of-our-arguments/feed/ 29 http://edinsanity.com/2009/09/30/the-politics-of-education-blogging-tagging-etc/ http://edinsanity.com/2009/09/30/the-politics-of-education-blogging-tagging-etc/#comments Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:32:15 +0000 Jon Becker http://edinsanity.com/?p=388 I’m teaching a course called The Politics of Education to an awesome group of our doctoral students this semester. The wiki/syllabus (a living, breathing document) is located HERE. You can participate and help my students’ (and my own) learning in a couple of ways. First, tagging…anything that you think might be related to what the [...]]]>

I’m teaching a course called The Politics of Education to an awesome group of our doctoral students this semester.

The wiki/syllabus (a living, breathing document) is located HERE.

You can participate and help my students’ (and my own) learning in a couple of ways.

First, tagging…anything that you think might be related to what the course is about (see e.g. http://sites.google.com/site/edpolitics/syllabus) can be tagged with “adms707“.  I know, just about everything education-related is also about the politics of education, but that’s OK. Tag away. We will all be feeding Google Reader with a subscription to the tag and we can filter out what’s useful or not.

Second, please consider subscribing to and/or reading the blogs my students are using as reflection spaces.  You can get to individual blog posts HERE.  Or, you can see the blog URLs HERE.  Of course, comments are helpful as I want this blogging endeavor to be meaningful in a connectivist sort of way.

Thanks for considering being a part of our learning experiences this semester!

photo credit: helgasms!

A picture is worth…

SOURCE: Tyack, David (1974). The One Best System. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Page 286

I blogged.

For Wes Fryer.

Because I’m trying to steal the attention of his vast audience.

Click here to see the post if you’d like.

photo credit: AchimH

[NOTE: thanks to Scott McLeod for dreaming up this idea three years ago.  This is my contribution to Leadership Day 2009.  The Leadership posts I've already seen are great, and the collection of posts will ultimately make for an important and interesting contribution to the field of educational leadership.]

I have a doctorate in Politics and Education and when I’m asked what that means, I usually speak to a definition of politics I’ve “borrowed” (re-mixed?) from an adjunct professor with whom I took a course while in graduate school.  Dr. Dale Snauwaert, an adjunct professor at TC at the time, wrote about politics as the intersection of power and justice.  Combining my interests in the politics of education and educational technology, I’ve written much about justice and educational technology (see e.g. this article).  I have not, however, written much about power and educational technology…until now.

In my courses on the politics of education, I guide our exploration of power with two questions: (1) who has power? and (2) how is power organized/distributed?  Much has been written about who has power in the area of educational technology, though there’s more that needs to be written.  Today, though, I explore what I believe to be a major obstacle to school reform through the lens of educational technology: how power is distributed around educational technology.

Educational governance is ultimately about control and how that control is (or is not) partitioned among the various stakeholders matters immensely. I argue that in education, the system is multi-layered and overly partitioned.  I compare our educational system to onions and silos.

“The way authority is structured and exercised shapes the intellectual and moral character of the school, thereby profoundly influencing student development” (Snauwaert, 1993).

ONIONS

The U.S. education system is like an onion in that it has many levels and the more you try to peel away at those layers, the more you start to tear up.

Policy decisions are made by federal, state, and local education agencies.  Even locally, decisions are made at the district, school, department and classroom level.

In addition to aiding or hindering quality education, there are many consequences to the multilayered system, including the phenomenon of mutual adaptation (which I’ve written about here).  As McLaughlin wrote in an article in 1990 about school reform, “…it is exceedingly difficult for policy to change practice, especially across levels of government” (p. 12).

I was reminded of the onion last week at NECC, and my reflections from the conference reinforced my thinking.  The largest ed. tech. conference in the U.S. is nearly entirely classroom-focused and the conversations are nearly totally absent of policy context.  Yet, alongside NECC proper, SETDA (the umbrella organization of state education technology officers) was holding their Emerging Technologies Forum & Annual Convocation.  There was some overlap between the two events, but from my perspective, the state-level policy makers were meeting in parallel with the school and district-level folks at NECC.  Similarly, shortly after NECC, the Education Commission of the States held their annual National Forum on Educational Policy.

This sort of parellel play doesn’t advance anyone’s cause.

SILOS

Even within the same levels of decision making in education, we have a serious silo problem.  Like policymakers across levels of governance, educators within any given level exist and work within separate silos; i.e. they play in parellel.  Think of all the silos: subjects, grades, departments, etc.

One silo problem that is particularly problematic is the curriculum vs. technology distinction.  I’ve long wanted to do an examination of school district organizational charts to see how technology is related to curriculum.  I know that in some districts, they are separate departments, each with its own director.  In some districts, there is an IT department (hardware, networking, etc.) that is separate from the instructional technology folks who may or may not live/exist under the direction of the curriculum folks.

I used to do evaluation research for education technology vendors who would often tell me stories about the “curriculum witch.”  They would usually pitch their solution(s) to the technology department and come very close to making a sale only to have the “curriculum witch” show up at the 11th hour and declare the program/software/etc. inconsistent with the curriculum goals of the district.  I’m certain there has been wasteful spending across numerous districts because the “curriculum witch” never did intervene.

In Virginia, our ISTE affiliate is VSTE.  They recently moved their annual conference to an early December date.  In fact, their conference is November 30-December 2.  From December 2-December 4 is the annual conference of VAASCD, the Virginia affiliate of ASCD.  That organization is focused mostly on issues of curriculum and professional development.  That these conferences are back-to-back in different parts of the state makes it nearly impossible for anyone (myself included) to be able to attend both.  So, the technology people will meet with the technology people and the teaching/curriculum people will meet amongst themselves.  I know people who I respect greatly that lead each of these organizations and I’m not at all blaming anyone for this situation.  I’m only pointing this out as a situation that reinforces the silo problem about which I am writing.

I could go on, but I need to bring this around to Leadership Day 2009.  For me, true school reform will not happen until leaders at all levels and across the many silos get together to think about governance arrangements. Especially at a time when collaboration and communication are easier than ever, we need to work together across levels of government and annihilate the silos in our education agencies.  Tha t is a huge leadership challenge.

“The real work of learning happens in the classroom, in the interaction between teacher and student.  This interaction is affected by innumerable large and small decisions made by principals, school boards, superintendents, state legislatures, education department officials, and the federal government.  These decisions and their implementation can either aid or hinder quality education in the classroom.” (Committee for Economic Development, 1994, p. 2)

Photo Attributions:

• Leadership Day: Scott McLeod
• Onions: Darwin Bell
• Silo: Chris Knight