Posts Tagged ‘Virginia’

Lives well lived, as well as facts well learned

June 28th, 2010

Submitted here on Monday, June 28th, 2010, in response to this and this.

Dear Governor McDonnell,

I write to urge you to spend an equal amount of political capital on establishing new charter schools in Virginia as you do on attracting national charter operators to the state. Organizations like KIPP offer college-prep curriculums augmented by extra time and stringent expectations of student compliance with rules. However, they do not in and of themselves offer models of project-based learning and student-centered pedagogies that better develop students’ collaborative and problem-solving skills – skills students will need to lead their own communities, businesses, and service organizations.

Consider Microsoft’s Educational Competencies, or compare the Top 10 Reasons to Work at Google with KIPP’s Five Pillars. We have schools like KIPP that reflect strict adherence to traditional instruction; do we have school’s that reflect the cultures of our world’s information-age pioneers? How do we develop those schools?

We develop them by taking advantage of Virginia’s relative inexperience with the national charter movement to innovate truly new types of schools. As state and local school boards partner with national charter operators that focus on replicating traditional notions of college preparedness, we should develop in parallel charter schools that research, develop, and share-out innovative cultures, communities, and practices – practices that allow students to discover new learning while still enrolled in public schools. Imagine schools that allow students to contribute to their communities, not just to graduate from them. Imagine schools that empower students to teach adults, not just to follow them. Imagine schools that inspire students to create and discover, not just to accept and cover.

As you search for viable models of charter education in Virginia, please look to programs like the Maine Farm Enterprise School, the New Country School and our own Blue Ridge Virtual Governor’s School for models of assessment, community, curriculum, and instruction that take students’ learning outside the classroom.

Virginia communities have wants and needs addressed by programs like KIPP. Be certain, though, that our children need more than academic preparedness to lead joyful, fulfilling lives of service to their communities, state, nation, and world. To serve others students must feel strong enough themselves to seek out new solutions to the problems with which we’ll leave them. We need schools that help students realize their potentials as artists, designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, leaders, volunteers, and visionaries – schools that don’t accept the limits of a college-prep curriculum – however effectively delivered – as the limits of teaching and learning. We need schools that look for the results of lives well lived, as well as the results of facts well learned.

Please use your political capital to lift up children and new models of education that serve them and their communities through innovative, project- and community-based learning and new assessment measures that accurately capture the results of this work. Please help Secretary Robinson to continue his efforts to do the same. It was wonderful to visit with him at my school, the Community Public Charter School, in Albemarle County. I enthusiastically invite you both to visit my classroom and to join with me in talking with Virginia’s students, parents, and educators about why we educate our children, as well as about how we can educate our children better.

Sincerely,

Chad Sansing, NBCT

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Posted in Bob McDonnell

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Two Takes on National Education Standards

June 3rd, 2009

By Norman Leahy

Responding to word that, at least in principle, 45 states and DC have agreed to the creation of a new set of national education standards, the Richmond Times-Dispatch coos:

The common-standards endeavor might complicate the effort of charter-school advocates who have been encouraged by President Obama’s openness to their cause. But it need not be a stumbling block. For one thing, wide disagreement about what kids should learn and when means any nationwide standards the states agree upon likely will set bare minimums. More to the point, the common standards will define a common finish line for each grade level. How schools get the students to cross it can still be up to them.


So all you school choicers — don’t worry your pretty little heads over this. Yes, it might make things tougher for you, but then again, maybe it won’t.

And, naturally, Virginia will benefit because the SOLs are already so rigorous that these new standards just might force those slackers elsewhere to catch-up.

Ah, the SOLs. The faith placed in bubble tests by the local gentry would be charming, or even mildly amusing…except for the manipulation of SOL data and the rather unimpressive showing of Virginia students on that already in-place national standard, the SAT.

“Bare minimums” indeed.

But another, and far less blinkered, view of national standards comes from Cato’s Neal McCluskey, who writes:

…when establishing national standards was attempted in the 1990s the real fireworks didn’t begin until proposed standards were published. Then, it seemed that everyone had a different reason they were outraged – outraged! – by the standards. At best, there was only one point of broad consensus: that the wannabe national standards simply had to go.

So are national standards a serious threat? They sure are: Were they to be enacted, the educationally deadly government-schooling monopoly would be complete, with even the ability to escape to better districts or states cut off.

But, he’s not overly concerned these standards will ever see the light of day, given the fractiousness of the parties involved.

We shall see.

(cross-posted at Tertium Quids)

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Posted in Norman Leahy

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The Window Slowly Closes

February 13th, 2009

Since it has been nearly one month since my last post, it’s only fitting that I jump back in with a little shameless self-promotion. On Tuesday, the Commonwealth of Virginia unveiled a site for her citizens to submit proposals for potential stimulus-funded projects. In less than four days, the number of proposals has topped 1,000.

I submitted Project ID #482, an Educational Innovation Initiative which reads as follows:

A state-level program similar to the US Dept of Ed’s Office of Innovation and Improvement, the Educational Innovation Board would be an entrepreneurial arm initially focusing on the economically challenged communities in Southside and Southwest Virginia. It will make strategic investments in innovative educational practices through discretionary grant programs in areas such as; teacher and principal quality, technology, parental involvement, financial literacy/economics, school improvement, magnet/charter/alternative schools, entrepreneurship, CTE, and STEM. This model for incentivizing innovative solutions is becoming increasingly popular. The potential economic benefit will far exceed the initial investment.

I asked a well-known edupolicy wonk to offer his two cents. Regardless of need, he noted that there is simply little money, and little thinking, about innovation right now. He’s right.

With announcements of teacher layoffs in the thousands and unprecedented levels of budget shortfalls, the coaxed public outcry has been deafening. I can certainly understand lawmakers’ hesitation to divert any funding away from those things. Even school construction is getting its fifteen minutes of political fame.

However, does this simply fuel the perpetuity of inefficiency and bureaucracy? I’ve been in the trenches. I’ve stood in for missing fathers while my students were questioned by the police and advocated for them when colleagues deemed them a waste of precious time. I’ve seen first-hand great teachers change lives and terrible ones drain the positive energy and the funds.

The worst part: these teachers, separated only by a wall, are paid the same. Effectiveness is overlooked. Teacher A arrived early, stayed late, spent out-of-pocket money and hours to better the craft. Teacher B shuffled through another year, contributing little, changing nothing. Yet they share the same pay raise, and simply have to grow one year older to get it.

Who benefits?

Is teacher-pay reform the panacea? Probably not. But it is an important ingredient to toss into the mix. Unfortunately, without a clear and deliberate focus on innovation, great ideas will just continue to swirl around teacher’s lounges, “outside” reform organizations, and in the ever-expanding world of social media.

When the economic good times return and billions of federal dollars aren’t being allocated to public schools, I suppose we’ll start thinking about financing innovation. Unfortunately, the window of opportunity will probably be closed.

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Posted in Chad Ratliff

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The (Roanoke) Times, They Are A’Changin’

January 18th, 2009

An editorial in the Roanoke Times shines the light on a “radical” idea that could potentially swing the pendulum back in a positive direction for the school division.

To be sure, this is not one of the packaged, initiative-in-a-box programs that we often read about to save a struggling school district. You’ll not find a new, hollow, eduspeak buzzword attached to this one, either.

They’re talking about fundamental changes to the education model itself.

Yes, the Roanoke City Public School system is about to do the unthinkable; pay the best teachers like the professionals they are. They’re not quite sure how they’re going to do it yet, but it sure as heck looks like they’re headed in the right direction.

What we do know is that it’s neither going to be the classic blanket raise, nor, at the other end of the teacher-pay argument, tied exclusively to test scores. Instead, employees will be rewarded “for meeting individual goals that contribute to the system’s success.”

This sounds like a plan where innovation and entrepreneurism will flourish and stagnation wilts. That’s a recipe for true change. If they do this, and do it right, this will be the dawn of a new era for Roanoke City Schools.

The critics will immediately argue that some teachers may not get the extra pay because of the kids they have in their particular classroom. Let me direct these critics to Jay Matthews’ article in today’s Washington Post; “Sorting Children Into ‘Cannots’ and ‘Cans’ Is Just Racism in Disguise”

The only people who this will not benefit are the ineffective, disgruntled teachers who believe they have kids sitting in their own classrooms who cannot learn what they’re being taught. They will be forced to either re-evaluate their educational philosophies or leave the classroom altogether. Either outcome benefits children.

The hat goes off to RCPS administration.

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Posted in Chad Ratliff

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Discussion Topics, Extra Credit and Free Food

January 16th, 2009

Martinsville City school chief Scott Kizner knows how to bring ‘em in. Kizner, an innovator and learning advocate, has been implementing creative means of mixing school and community since his arrival. Martinsville is a high-poverty community maintains double-digit unemployment year in and year out.

Like many micropolitan areas, specifically in the southeast, Martinsville is a former textile and furniture boomtown that lost over 10,000 jobs throughout the 1990′s. Micropolitan areas gather little attention from researchers or advocacy groups relative to more urban inner-cities and far-flung rural parts of the US. However, they often face the high poverty and crime rates of inner-cities as well as the challenges of a weak technological infrastructure, high unemployment rates, and a rapidly-increasing ESL population commonly found in rural school divisions.

You’ll often find pockets of “old money” from a by-gone era that still calls the shots in local government. The old guard can be resistant to change, to say the least, and few are whipping out checkbooks to spend on schools they feel haven’t directly impacted them in 30 years.

Kizner has done a commendable job connecting with various sectors of the community and is cleverly weaving a school-community blanket that will benefit all stakeholders, especially the citizens emerging from its classrooms. A few years ago he established an annual fundraising gala to provide mini-grants to support “innovative programs and projects” from entrepreneurial teachers. The high turnout has given many local philanthropists an opportunity to dust off the tuxedos and reevaluate their relationship with the school division. His latest venture, “Safe Schools / Safe Communities“, drew an unprecedented attendance of nearly 1000 and featured breakout sessions led by local agency and advocacy representatives.

The secret to the turnout, according to Kizner, was three-fold: interest in the topic, extra credit for the students, and free food. Simple means toward a significant end. He claimed, “Tonight we are a community of one…united”. Indeed.

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Posted in Chad Ratliff

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