hacking education

Ten years ago, the graduation rate at Cincinnati's Taft Information Technology High School was 18 percent. It was considered one of the worst schools in Ohio; parents didn't want to send their children there.

Since then, thanks to dedicated principal Anthony Smith, the same staff of hard-working teachers and a unique partnership with the local phone company, the school has undergone a complete 180, ABC News reports.

Today, the school has taken its "failure is not an option" motto to heart. Ninety-five percent of the students graduate. And not a single one of the free phones and laptops given to students who kept a 3.3 grade point average (by Cincinnati Bell, the city's local phone company) has been taken back because the student fell behind.

Via The Huffington Post

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

Online education is rapidly making advances.  In support of the quote below from Bill Gates, I present "100+ Online Resources That Are Transforming Education."  

“Five years from now you’ll be able to get the best courses in the world over the Internet…the issue will be accreditation…do you have the same knowledge as if you had a Harvard degree, or an MIT degree?” Aug 2010 - Bill Gates

Amy Burvall, who works at Le Jardin Academy in Kailua, Oahu, and her creative partner, Herb Mahelona, who used to work with her at St. Andrew’s Priory in Honolulu, decided to put history to music -- and then make a video about it -- to lure kids into the subject.

And they say it works.

The videos are posted on You Tube as History for Music Lovers.

"After about a year of showing the videos in class as either an intro/teaser to a lesson and/or as a recap for study help a lot of students expressed an interest in doing the project themselves, so I made that a culminating project option.

"I’ve had some amazing student-created lyrics and videos over the past few years. Some include “Jack the Ripper” to “Womanizer”, “Mussolini” to “Paparazzi”, and a beautiful song about Corrie Ten Boom to Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah”. The students really appreciate how time-consuming the process is after creating their own.

"As for the songs’ effectiveness in the classroom, for several years I took polls on this. The kids seemed to really think they helped them remember the basic info, but more than that they sparked an interest in history to learn more independently. I am constantly surprised to see how many college-level profs are using them, as they were originally intended for 15 year-olds. I’m glad, though, because we don’t try to “dumb down” any lyrics.

"I am also surprised at how some YouTubers take them so seriously – as if a two- or three-minute song could ever replace a thorough historical study or seminar. There are just a lot of things a lyricist need to omit due to timing or rhyme concerns. They read into the lyrics, too.

"Basically, they have to realize that these songs need to have discussions that bolster them, and maybe even call into question the advantages and disadvantages of learning history through pop culture.

"Overall, we are quite pleased with the response both from our students and the public at large. We hope they really help to make history fun and memorable."

via Washington Post

Today, the Idaho House passed a bill to approve merit based pay for teachers.  While I whole-heartedly believe that the education system should become professionalized in this manner, I shudder to think of what a nightmare it is going to be to implement merit pay into the current system.  

The article I read says that the legislation will "... award bonuses to teachers who raise student achievement..."  Student achievement means ... mastery of material?  Increased state test scores?  Working the system?  "Student achievement" is a term that gets thrown around in education like a "end hunger" campaign.  Sure, we know there are a lot of people hungry in the world, but it's a pretty ambiguous term as to what the specific call to action is, and it's easy to justify our own inaction by assuming that someone else is dedicated to the cause and making a difference, and just needs our moral support.  

So, here's a specific call to action - define student achievement. 

Via the HuffingtonPost

Some great excerpts from Megan McArdle's article on why its important that we can fire teachers:

Let me start by saying that I think there are some jobs that are too important to let any consideration intrude other than the best way to get the job done.  Nuclear power plants, firefighters, poison control--I don't want to let other social goals, no matter how laudable, hamper their mission. Teaching is one of those jobs.

I just can't prioritize making teachers' work environments fair, interesting, or pleasant for them--not if there's any potential conflict with the goal of providing the best possible education for kids.  Particularly disadvantaged kids, since I basically assume that educated and competent parents are going to ensure that their offspring are educated and competent.  But where there are needy kids, my entire focus is on them.  I want to make teachers' lives pleasant only insofar as this advances the goal of helping kids who need a lot of help.

So what are the benefits of making teachers easier to fire?

• We get rid of the worst teachers--the ones who now take years to fire.  The kids they're teaching would be better off with an utter neophyte.  As Noah Millman points out in the post I linked above, very bad teachers are not just a problem for their class; the effect spills over to other classrooms when those kids go from period to period, or year to year, degrading the effectiveness of the school as a whole.
• We end the temptation for long-time teachers to phone it in: teach the same lesson plans over and over, give essentially the same tests, etc. Yes, there are many dedicated teachers who keep putting in 110% for decades, but it is ludicrous to suggest that this describes every single teacher in America.
• We shift the selection pool from people who are more interested in decades-long job security to people who are more interested in money.  Not everyone who is interested in job security wants to be able to coast--but people who want to be able to coast are likely to be very attracted to job security.  Universities mitigate this effect by making it so spectacularly hard to get to the point of being a tenured professor.  Primary schools don't have that option.
• We end up with fewer burned-out teachers still in the classroom.  If we make teaching the high-intensity, high reward job it should always be, then we're going to get people burning out.
• We give teachers an incentive to do what works the best, rather than what is most satisfying for them.  I warn you that if you are about to suggest that this never happens, I am going to ask you if you have ever met any human beings, and if so, whether you actually spoke to them. As Ian Ayres points out, boring-but-effective systems like direct instruction have been blocked for years by teachers because it reduces their autonomy.  I grant that teachers convince themselves that they are doing this for the children. Journalists also convince themselves that they have a special right not to have their emails read the way they do to everyone else . . . and I assure you, they genuinely believe that this is a principled moral stand.
• People will not invest so much in educational credentials, which are completely useless outside of schools. Since these credentials show zero impact on teacher quality, it would be better for the teachers to be studying literally anything else, including a reality television show from the couch.  At least they'd get something out of that.
• Laying off older, more expensive teachers is not good for those teachers . . . but it is good for the schools.  It means you can achieve necessary budget cuts by laying off the fewest teachers.

via The Atlantic