Distractions Are Us, Progress Tells Us So!

A friend posted this article from the Nov. 1, NYT to his Facebook page the other day: "Technology Is Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say."

I'll note that "a version" of this was published as "For Better and for Worse, Technology Use Alters Learning Styles, Teachers Say" in the print edition.  You decide if the web gurus who apply an "SEO" praxis to headlines worked some sticky magic.

Of course, both headlines are full of ambiguities and assumptions.  Just look at the assumption that must be made to presume the reader knows what is being "meant" by the word "technology."

I think though that my favorite headline trick is the "tack-on" to both: "teachers say."

But, it's not a tack-on really, it's the whole story.  This piece purports to describe a "teacher's-eye-view" of how "generally" the fact that the world is full of the "categorically" labeled digital information devices (from computers to handheld gaming devices to Kindle Fires to iPads to Xboxes and so on) and  that kids spend more time "in front of them" than they do in school on a daily basis is both "bad and good" as regards that mythical beast "learning."

A shocking assertion of ambivalence!

But, it must be admitted that the times and "minds" (whatever that means) they are a'changin'; the world, due to its spherical nature and its gravitational response to the sun, turns, or so I'm told.

What I wanted to posit is the intention of the piece: As the ground of our being has shifted, currently, to an electronically digital "self" (please feel free to spend time slogging through the "philosophical" literature asserting our digital accoutrements are ACTUALLY extensions of our brains and so are "a part of us"), teachers have become, are, barriers to the "new learning" in this phase of humanity.

Kristen Purcell, the associate director for research at Pew, acknowledged that the findings could be viewed from another perspective: that the education system must adjust to better accommodate the way students learn, a point that some teachers brought up in focus groups themselves.

“What we’re labeling as ‘distraction,’ some see as a failure of adults to see how these kids process information,” Ms. Purcell said. “They’re not saying distraction is good but that the label of ‘distraction’ is a judgment of this generation.”

What we have here is a failure to communicate!  Er, rather, what we have here is a re-adjustment bureau proposition.  Kristen Purcell has given us the "truth" of this piece--brains are changing, if you label it appropriately then it's all good.  And that is indeed the truth of culture.  Silly teachers and other "adults" can't see this is how the new brain processes information!  Is that all we mean by "think" these days?

And, as is usual, the "blame" (though it must be admitted at some point that we all approve of the change or at least tacitly accept it as human "progress," quoth the blogger), aimed so wonderfully by this "news item" so as to come from a teacher's mouth, is put upon parents.

“They need skills that are different than ‘Spit, spit, there’s the answer,’ ” said Lisa Baldwin, 48, a high school teacher in Great Barrington, Mass., who said students’ ability to focus and fight through academic challenges was suffering an “exponential decline.” She said she saw the decline most sharply in students whose parents allowed unfettered access to television, phones, iPads and video games.

I knew it was the less-than-rugged individual who was to blame (accept it, shirker) rather than the juggernaut of commercial culture that promotes and sells (requires!) brain extensions to be applied in all aspects of life (there's an app for that!).  Permissive fools, you've let us be successful in our one-sided onslaught!  Here's an interesting aside: I'm pretty sure that our public libraries are now community electronic extensions of "indigent" brains.  Heck, you can't seek/find/apply for work anymore unless you do it online.

All of this is meaningless of course.  The plough changed the world--did it change brains?  Probably.  We are our behaviors.  We are immersed in the this new world order.  Don't like it, there's always Africa...unless Gates has already "wirelessed" it...Mountains in Central America?

But I'll admit that the article (which, come now, we must see as simply an editorial in the guise of "reportage") does end with what I find the "last laugh" of the old brain, our Christian culture.  (Can the Lord be properly identified if He returns pixelated?)

Dr. Dimitri Christakis, who studies the impact of technology on the brain...[says] [h]is own research shows what happens to attention and focus in mice when they undergo the equivalent of heavy digital stimulation. Students saturated by entertainment media, he said, were experiencing a “supernatural” stimulation that teachers might have to keep up with or simulate.

The heavy technology use, Dr. Christakis said, “makes reality by comparison uninteresting.”

Ah, the unreality of supernatural stimulation...this is truly the deux ex machina.

At some point we'll be forced to ask, is the machine the extension of "self," or is the organic material we  label "the body" the extension?  That chicken!  That egg!

Quick, look it up at the Wikipedia surely it knows and can tell us and put us at ease.

More "Zero" Pushback?

Even charter school parents are offended by Duncan's "zero" opposition claims:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Leonie Haimson, 917-435-9329

Tuesday, May 18, 2010 Mona Davids, 917-340-8987

Khem Irby: 718-452-0146

Leslie-Ann Byfield: 917-783-5299

CHARTER SCHOOL PARENTS PROTEST DUNCAN’S VISIT TO NYC CHARTER SCHOOL

Before raising the cap, charter and district parents demand more transparency, accountability, equity and parent input at charter schools

NEW YORK, NY (May 18, 2010) Today, current and former charter school parents protested the appearance of Secretary Duncan’s visit to Kings Collegiate Charter School in Brooklyn, one of the chain of charter schools run by Uncommon Schools. They called attention to the fact that Duncan’s attempt to pressure the Legislature to raise the cap on charters ignores the many flaws in the current system, including the lack of sufficient financial oversight, excessive discipline at charter schools and the suppression of parent and student rights.

According to Leslie-Ann Byfield, a charter school parent who advocates for parents with children experiencing abusive practices at charter schools, “Increasing the number of charter schools without acknowledging the growing list of complaints and concerns, AND without providing remedies, is irresponsible at least, and even more so when supported by the Secretary of Education. Today, I waited in the rain until I could ask Secretary Duncan when he would talk to charter parents to hear their concerns. He politely responded that he does talk to parents and was willing to meet with us. But when I asked how we could arrange this, I immediately became invisible, as he turned his back, walked away and shut his car door. Now I understand how it is that Secretary Duncan says there is zero opposition to his charter school proposals. Today, Secretary Duncan deemed me a zero.”

According to Mona Davids, President of the NY Charter Parents Association, "Uncommon Schools does not allow Parent Associations of any kind. We have been helping a parent at the Kings Collegiate School for several months. We need far more transparency and a voice for parents at all charter schools, to stop their abusive practices. Secretary Duncan should explain what he is going to do to ensure that corporate chicanery, corruption and financial mismanagement does not happen at charter schools, and should have addressed the plight of the parents at Kings Collegiate when he visited that school. That would show he truly cares about our children!"

Samantha Jeffrey, a parent at Kings Collegiate Charter School, says, “I support the charter school system, however I believe they have not reached their potential so that my child can reach his potential as well. I would like to work with them on real solutions that focus on the child’s academic excellence, as opposed to the distractions of the current disciplinary code and policy. I have also been ignored when I asked for essential information that I deserve as a parent. Parents at our school as well as other charter schools need a voice.”

Data from the State Education Department for Kings Collegiate shows that while there are 90 fifth graders, this number shrinks to 53 students in the seventh grade.

Khem Irby, parent leader in District 13 and a former parent at Leadership Prep Charter School, one of the Uncommon Schools chain, said: “It was very disrespectful of Secretary Duncan not to visit K588 today, the public school co-located in the building with Kings Collegiate. He should be reminded that charter schools are NOT the cure-all. We were told by the attorney of Uncommon Schools to cease and desist our efforts to form a Parent Association at the school. The practices at Leadership Prep continue to degrade the self-esteem of children. Many of their students have been suspended for trivial reasons like “yawning too loud”, and they have had a mass exodus of students who have returned to neighborhood schools. They also have used ACS as a tool to suppress parent complaints.”

Lydia Temples, a former parent at Leadership Prep, said: “When I had concerns about the unfairness of the disciplinary procedures at the school, I used all the legal avenues of redress at my disposal. I filed grievances with the school, the board of trustees, the SUNY Charter School Institute, the Board of Regents, and finally, the State Education Commissioner, and none of them responded. Instead, the school called ACS to try to shut down my complaints and they took my daughter away from me for two days. I finally had to take my child out of the school.”

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, says: “We object to Duncan’s political pressure to force our state to raise the cap on charters, without any protections in place to prevent financial corruption and abuse of power. He has said that there is “zero” opposition to his policies, and yet more than two thousand people have signed our petition against raising the charter cap in the last two weeks. We also resent the way the charter lobby is spreading disinformation, including the false claim that the “Race to the Top” funding can be used to prevent layoffs at schools. As Kathleen Grimm pointed out at City Council hearings last week, the use of this federal grant program is very restrictive and cannot be used for these purposes.”

Lisa Donlan, President of the Community Education Council in District 1, where bitter battles have occurred over charter schools occupying space in existing public schools, concludes: “The US Dept of Education should be using its leadership to encourage states to adopt real solutions to the problems of our schools, including admissions plans that reduce racial and economic isolation; smaller class sizes; and greater opportunities for early childhood education. Arne Duncan has ignored all these issues in favor of a narrow political agenda to promote privatization.”

Class Size Matters and the NY Charter Parents Association have sponsored a petition to the State Legislature, urging them to adopt protections for parents and students and enhanced accountability for charter schools before lifting the cap. The petition has received more than 2,000 signatures in the last two weeks, and can be viewed at http://www.change.org/petitions/view/vote_no_to_raising_the_cap_on_charter_schools

The two groups have also formulated a framework of common principles for charter and district schools, demanding more accountability for the spending of taxpayer, including audits from the State Comptroller and barring profit-making charter operators from making money off our children. It also calls for more voice for parents, including the need for every charter school to have a Parents Association and a parent sitting on its board. The framework document can be accessed at: http://www.classsizematters.org/common_principles_v3.pdf

Dear Anonymous Parents

I received this letter from a parent who wishes to remain anonymous. Below is my response.


On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 9:33 PM, __________ wrote:

Dr. Horn,
Have you seen the study commissioned by our school CEO? Try here. Some of our existing school inventory is being "given" to charter school operators (not clear on the terms, if they rent,etc.) Our newspaper, what's left of it (Baltimore Sun) doesn't seem to care, and the edu-blogger at The Sun is clearly biased toward charters (like Jay Matthews). I enrolled my son at one of the most prominent charters in town (run by a team of hucksters, in my opinion) and rue the day I did. I am opposed now on philosophical grounds, but there doesn't seem to be much organized opposition to the "charter school movement" as they call themselves.

I also recently saw C-Span's Book TV panel featuring the Jay Matthew's book about KIPP with the KIPP CEO in which they constantly talked about how many schools they had and that they were basically unstoppable. I saw your review of that book and am encouraged a few people must be seeing things clearly.

My family's experience with a charter (a KIPP wannabee) was more in line with your interpretation. My son was enrolled at that charter for two years. The CEO wrote letters to the parents asking them to be "faithful". We were lied to, manipulated, even pressured to write supportive letters about the school to get their contract renewed (I declined). These people are professional school jockeys, intent on taking over the Baltimore City Public Schools (I heard the CEO of the charter say just that) How do citizens stand up to that kind of onslaught, especially in a city like Baltimore?

Please don't publish my name on your blog, this is a small town, I have school-age kids and the shadow of the charters is growing! I do have the sense that much of what they do is smoke and mirrors, but I've seen families pushed out of them (I guess mine was...) and it was very upsetting. Maybe that's part of the problem - the people who care have kids that could be hurt by the chaos caused by charters, and people who don't have kids don't have an opinion.

thanks
anonymous
__________________

Dear Anonymous Parent,

Thank you for your letter and sharing of the charter news from Baltimore. You are right, of course, that public education is under attack from an anti-democratic band of corporate welfare capitalists comprised of big spending vulture philanthropists and testing corporations, the professional parasites running the social capital investment funds and foundations, corrupt politicians looking to build their own political capital, and, finally, parents like you whose unfortunate cowardice makes you complicit and victim at the same time. Most of all, you are victim of your own excuses about trying to protect your children as a legitimate reason for not getting involved in the battle to make your child's education better.

When I hear the fear expressed in letters like yours, I always think back to the black parents in the the 1950s and 1960s who wanted to protect their children, too. They wanted to protect them from a second-rate education, second-class citizenship, third-rate jobs, and first-rate patronizing bigotry. In order to protect those children's futures, however, they had to make the conscious choice to send them through the throngs of ugly, screaming white racists carry clubs and guns, only to be turned away from white schoolhouse doors.

In case you've forgotten or have never been taught (history has never been on the Test), President Eisenhower called out the 101st Airborne Division in defiance of Gov. Faubus of Arkansas, who had activated the National Guard to make sure the black children of Little Rock would not be allowed to go to school with whites. Still, parents sent their children, tip-toeing through broken glass and absorbing the insults of wild-eyed haters. And for the first year after integration of Little Rock High, the black children who had the courage and whose parents had the courage to demand better, absorbed the hatred of peers as individual children had their own individual 101st Airborne guard to go with them to classes. These were parents interested in their own children's futures, and the children of the generations to come.

So please don't tell me about your fear for your child. You are simply caught up in the pandemic of cowardice that has made sheeple of the American electorate, sheeple who refuse to stand out from the crowd or to move off the path of least resistance. And in supporting the pillaging of public schools by the corporate goons, you have turned your back on those who made the sacrifice 40 and 50 years ago, just as you have turned your back on your own children's future that you would, otherwise, protect.

Get off your ass and get involved if you really care about your children. When parents (voters) like you band together and demand something better than the cheap, segregated charter chain gangs and KIPP knockoffs, the conversation in Washington and in Baltimore will change very quickly. But not until then.

You and other parents have the power to change schools. Your children are their only customers.

Sincerely,
Jim Horn

Looking for Parent Power to Save the Public Schools

As parents, teachers of conscience, and students flee the public schools that have been strong-armed into becoming abusive testing factories, rightwing pols and oligarchs like Gates and Broad and Dell are eager to step in to save the public schools by killing the public in them. And of course, where bareknuckled politics and philanthrotarianism fail, the bloodsuckers of the education industry are ready to exploit children for their market potential, rather than as the source of our future civilization.

Gary Stager believes that the real key making schools better has a lot to do with the power of parents. Here is a clip from his informative piece in Good. All of it is worth reading:

. . . .Eli Broad, a Los Angeles billionaire, is another kind of philanthropist. Broad funds a narrower range of interventions and has demonstrated less willingness to experiment than Gates. Broad’s efforts advance a very specific model: top-down school management based on business principles. Over the first five years, Broad has committed over $500 million to his notions of school reform. He even runs an academy that trains school leaders in precisely this kind of management.

Broad’s money supports more standardized testing, a longer school day, scripted curricula, merit pay, the replacement of school administrators with managers, support of charter schools, and mayoral control. In Broad’s worldview, incentives drive everything, including education. The annual Broad Prize for Urban Education gives a total of $1 million dollars to five urban school districts that do the most to raise student test scores. The award also grants college scholarships to students in the district. That sort of money and the press it attracts has a domino effect: All of a sudden, others want to get tough and adhere to the Broad manifesto, too.

In 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his newly appointed schools chancellor, Joel Klein, seized control of New York City’s public schools, disbanding local school boards and reducing community involvement. Under Klein and Bloomberg, test scores may have risen, but chaos has ensued as the organizational structure of the district changes continuously. Now, policies similar to Broad’s educational blueprint are being followed in the city’s public schools. Last year, New York City earned the coveted Broad Prize.

Broad and his followers also embrace charter schools. Charters are quasi-public schools that receive public funding but don’t have to play by the same rules; they have more latitude than public schools, including the freedom to use different curricula, employ non-credentialed educators, change the school calendar, ban unions, and be selective in student enrollment. In some cities, affluent parents use the charter laws to create private schools with public money. In others, like the New City Schools in Long Beach, California, innovative educators with a coherent vision of edu-cation teach in ways they believe will benefit children in their community.

It is natural for parents to want the best for their children. Unfortunately, the charter laws may create greater educational inequity—rich, involved parents get their kids into the best charter schools, leaving only the poor students behind in the slowly deserted public schools. This forced choice could be avoided if every school was shaped by its teachers, parents, and community, with all children free to attend the school best-suited to their needs or interests. For example, the Montclair, New Jersey, public schools have experienced decades of success with mandatory school choice. Each elementary school is distinct and parents are required to choose the best option for their child. . . .

Parent Groups Unite to Challenge Neolib and Neocon Education Agendas

From the NY Sun:

. . . .

Led by two parent organizers — one in New York City and one inChicago — this group says it's parents, not the unions, not the CEOs, and not even many of the academics, who have the right idea of how to improve public schools.

"There's a complete disconnect between what we're being told by the politicians and the businesspeople about what we should want schools to do, and what parents want schools to do," the executive director of the Chicago-based Parents United for Responsible Education, Julie Woestehoff, said. "But frankly what parents want schools to do is better for their children. They know best."

In hope of narrowing the gap, Ms. Woestehoff's group is issuing a several-page manifesto outlining its ideas for how to improve schools. Among the top suggestions of the document, titled "Common Sense Educational Reforms," are easing overcrowding; lowering class sizes; offering a more well-rounded curriculum, and increasing parental involvement.

The letter is co-authored by the executive director of the New York City-based advocacy group Class Size Matters, Leonie Haimson, and has 75 signatures.

The prescriptions sharply contradict ideas recommended by two major groups this summer that were themselves at odds.

One of those groups, led by Chancellor Joel Klein, recommended tough accountability standards that would lead to the firing of bad teachers and the closing of failing schools; the other, called the Broader, Bolder Agenda, argued that accountability alone cannot dissolve the achievement gap — that additional investments in improving health care and after-school programs are required to do so.

The parents criticize both groups. They dismiss Mr. Klein's as offering only a beefed-up version of President Bush's unpopular No Child Left Behind law. Mr. Klein's prescriptions are "NCLB on steroids," the parents' letter says.

They also reject charter schools, which are embraced by Mr. Klein and his supporters as a means of giving opportunities to poor children. The Common Sense group says charter schools actually further exacerbate income disparities by admitting only children who can do well at their schools and leaving the rest to flounder. . . .

Accountability, or someone to blame?

One of my students emailed me yesterday to say that something is happening in discussions among mothers with school-age children. Suddenly, they are terrified that their children will not pass the annual tests mandated by NCLB. These middle class mothers blame the teachers for not preparing their children for the test. Many teachers, in turn, blame bad parenting or the mandated curriculum that does not seem aligned with the tests that students are required to take.

But there is a growing chorus who are blaming the testing orgy, itself--a policy carefully put together with an unachievable goal of 100 % proficiency in reading and math by 2014. While poverty schools, both rural and urban, are now going on the federal "watch-list" (they are the canaries in this coal mine) for the second or third year, and thus facing more and more sanctions, those middle class preserves are now beginning to realize how likely it will be that their kids' schools will also become subject to the list of sanctions that were crafted to weaken support of public schools and to open the door to school privatization. After 3 or 4 years on the federal watch-list (great term, "watch-list"), parents and school boards will be ready to try some of the "free-market" solutions that inspired this reform from the beginning. This is the plan to shatter the resistance to bringing in corporations to manage the public schools.

The rise of the corporate welfare school (companies taking public dollars to manage the schools and hire the teachers) depends upon the failure of the public schools, and that "failure" is happening now in the name of accountability, high standards, and ending the achievement gap. No more cynical or inhumane game could be conceived in the name of education.

So the blaming that is going around among teachers and parents needs to be solidified against the culprit, rather than blaming one another for events that neither created nor can control. Peter McWalters, Commissioner of Education for Rhode Island, believes the political solution, indeed, rests with teachers and parents, as they begin to talk about the harsh realities of their students and children and schools. When parents, then, begin to talk to their state and federal lesgislators, that is when the political rhetoric and realities will begin to change. Teachers can't make that political move because they have already been politically marginalized as selfish union members who only care about their paychecks. The MacSchools of the future that neo-cons envision will assuredly will not have union members.