SMALL SCHOOLS GETS SMALL ALLOWANCE!

LEGISLATURE

School aid plan gets Senate approval

Funding increase not enough, some say

BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF and LORI HIGGINS • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS • July 18, 2008

LANSING -- The state Senate approved a school budget compromise Thursday that would give school districts an additional $56 to $122 per pupil and set aside $15 million for districts to create new, smaller high schools aimed at reducing dropout rates.

The House is expected to take action on the school budget when it returns to session Wednesday. The $13.4-billion school aid plan would be the last large piece of the 2008-09 budget to be enacted. Lawmakers finished most of the rest of the budget before they broke for summer recess two weeks ago.

But some school officials say that although they're pleased to see an increase, it won't come close to covering their rising costs.

"Our fuel costs went up 42%, our health care costs are increasing about 10% and our retirement costs continue to go up. Those are double-digit increases," said Betsy Erikson, spokeswoman for Bloomfield Hills Schools, which would see an increase in state funding of less than 1%.

Richard Repicky, superintendent at Fraser Public Schools, said this will be the seventh year in a row the district will have received a state increase of about 1%.

"If it was one year at 1%, we'd be fine. But seven years in a row at 1% is killing school districts."

The $15 million for smaller high schools is less than half of the $32 million Gov. Jennifer Granholm had requested. The fund would give out $3 million in direct start-up grants to some districts with high dropout rates, rather than pay off bonds to build the revamped high schools.

Senate Republicans, who hold a majority, held fast against selling more state bonds for the school plan, which Granholm had proposed.

The basic grant to all schools would increase depending on how much each district now receives; lower-spending districts would receive larger increases. The increases are about half of what Granholm originally proposed because state revenues have come in less than expected since January.

The conference committee agreement also would add $10 million to early childhood education programs.

Sen. Ron Jelinek, R-Three Oaks, chairman of the House-Senate conference, predicted most of the increase will pay for school districts' increased costs for heating and gasoline for buses.

Robert LeFevre, lobbyist for the Macomb Intermediate School District, said he doubts the state will have the money to pay for the proposed increases by the end of the year because of a still-faltering economy.

"We've told our districts to budget as low as possible," LeFevre said. "It's very uncertain what the numbers will be."

The budget deal also calls for a change in the definition of what constitutes a first-class school district, although the impact of the change was not immediately clear.

Currently, only a district with 100,000 pupils or more qualifies as a first-class district. Only Detroit meets that threshold, which gives it some financial protections and also prevents community colleges from sponsoring charter schools in its boundaries.

The funding bill eliminates a long-standing provision that prohibits other school districts from establishing their own schools or programs within the City of Detroit without the Detroit school board's permission. That would not apply to charter schools, however, which are governed by a separate law. But the district is expected to fall below 100,000 students this fall, and the state school aid bill would drop the minimum enrollment to 60,000 for a first-class district.

However, the definition of a first-class school district also is in the school code, and that may need to be amended to make the change effective, according to district spokesman Steve Wasko.

"We certainly feel it was an appropriate move from the Senate," Wasko said.

Contact CHRIS CHRISTOFF at 517-372-8660 or cchristoff@freepress.com.

Drop-Out Interventions

LOCAL COMMENT

Preschool prevents dropouts

BY BRIAN MACKIE • July 16, 2008

When high school students do not graduate on schedule, or drop out, they lose, and we all lose. When children get a "Great Start," we all win.

As they reconvene today in Lansing to complete work on budget bills, state legislators can make sure we are all winners by including funds for proven dropout-prevention programs in the school aid bill.

Law enforcement leaders want kids to stay in school, because we know firsthand and through research that high school graduates are less likely to turn to crime. Dropouts are 3 1/2 times more likely than high school graduates to be arrested, and more than eight times as likely to be in jail or prison.

Across the country, 68% of state prison inmates did not receive a high school diploma. According to researchers, a 10% increase in graduation rates reduces murder and assault rates by about 20%.

High-quality preschool is a proven dropout-prevention program. Evidence from several long-term evaluations of the effects of preschool shows that participating in high-quality preschool increases high school graduation rates by as much as 44%. Yet in Michigan, only two of every three eligible at-risk 4-year-old children have access to publicly funded preschool programs such as Great Start School Readiness and Head Start. The remaining third go unserved and are on long waiting lists due to inadequate funding.

Another proven dropout-prevention program proposed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm in the education budget calls for smaller high schools. Such schools, with programs that work with students and their parents, have been proved in other states to be viable interventions to reduce dropout rates and keep students on track for graduation.

Michigan's dropout crisis not only threatens the public's safety but also damages the state economy. Dropouts earn less, pay fewer taxes, and are more likely to collect welfare and turn to crime. The economic losses over time will further erode our fragile economy.

Increased investments in effective programs such as preschool and smaller high schools are needed now in Michigan to increase graduation rates and to save valuable tax dollars in the long run to reinvest in other priorities. We cannot continue to build more prisons to solve the problem of crime. Getting at the front end of crime by nipping it in the bud with proven interventions that give children a "Great Start" are in everyone's best interest.

We know that preventing dropouts saves money and lives. We pay now or we pay much more later on. Let us take the responsible route today and pay the tab, rather than pass it on to future generations.

BRIAN MACKIE is the Washtenaw County prosecutor and statewide cochairman of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Michigan, www.fightcrime.org, a nonprofit organization led by police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and crime survivors. Write to him in care of the Free Press Editorial Page, 615 W. Lafayette, Detroit, MI 48226 or at oped@freepress.com.

The AUTHENTICITY of the DIGITAL COMMONS (Informs OUR Understanding)

THE NEXT RENAISSANCE

To me, "Personal Democracy" is an oxymoron. Democracy may be a lot of things, but the last thing it should be is "personal." I understand "personal responsibility," such as a family having a recycling bin in which they put their glass and metal every week. But even then, a single recycling bin for a whole building or block would be more efficient and appropriate.

Democracy is not personal, because if it's about anything, it's not about the individual. Democracy is about others. It's about transcending the self and acting collectively. Democracy is people, participating together to make the world a better place.

One of the essays in this conference's proceedings—the book "Rebooting Democracy"— remarks snarkily, "It's the network, stupid." That may go over well with all of us digital folks, but it's not true. It's not the network at all; it's the people. The network is the tool—the new medium that might help us get over the bias of our broadcasting technologies. All those technologies that keep us focused on ourselves as individuals, and away from our reality as a collective.

This focus on the individual, and its false equation with democracy, began back in the Renaissance. The Renaissance brought us wonderful innovations, such as perspective painting, scientific observation, and the printing press. But each of these innovations defined and celebrated individuality. Perspective painting celebrates the perspective of an individual on a scene. Scientific method showed how the real observations of an individual promote rational thought. The printing press gave individuals the opportunity to read, alone, and cogitate. Individuals formed perspectives, made observations, and formed opinions.

The individual we think of today was actually born in the Renaissance. The Vesuvian Man, Da Vinci's great drawing of a man in a perfect square and circle—independent and self-sufficient. This is the Renaissance ideal.

It was the birth of this thinking, individuated person that led to the ethos underlying the Enlightenment. Once we understood ourselves as individuals, we understood ourselves as having rights. The Rights of Man. A right to property. The right to personal freedom.

The Enlightenment—for all its greatness—was still oh, so personal in its conception. The reader alone in his study, contemplating how his vote matters. One man, one vote. We fight revolutions for our individual rights as we understood them. There were mass actions, but these were masses of individuals, fighting for their personal freedoms.

Ironically, with each leap towards individuality there was a corresponding increase in the power of central authorities. Remember, the Renaissance also brought us centralized currencies, chartered corporations, and nation states. As individuals become concerned with their personal plights, their former power as a collective moves to central authorities. Local currencies, investments, and civic institutions dissolve as self-interest increases. The authority associated with them moves to the center and away from all those voting people.

The media of the Renaissance—the printing press—is likewise terrific at myth-making. At branding. Its stories are told to individuals, either through books, or through broadcast media directed at each and every one of us. Its appeals are to self and self-interest.

Consider any commercial for blue jeans. Its target audience is not a confident person who already has a girlfriend. The commercial communicates, "wear these jeans, and you'll get to have sex." Who is the target for that message? An isolated, alienated person who does not have sex. The messaging targets the individual. If it's a mass medium, it targets many many individuals.

Movements, like myths and brands, depend on this quality of top-down, Renaissance-style media. They are not genuinely collective at all, in that there's no promotion of interaction between the people in them. Instead, all the individuals relate to the hero, ideal, or mythology at the top. Movements are abstract—they have to be. They hover above the group, directing all attention towards themselves.

As I listen to people talk here—well-meaning progressives, no doubt—I can't help but hear the romantic, almost desperate desire to become part of a movement. To become part of something famous, like the Obama campaign. Maybe even get a good K-street job out of the connections we make here. It's a fantasy perpetrated by the TV show West Wing. A myth that we want to be part of. But like any myth, it is a fantasy—and one almost entirely prefigured by Renaissance individualism.

The next renaissance (if there is one)—the phenomenon we're talking about or at least around here is not about the individual at all, but about the networked group. The possibility for collective action. The technologies we're using—the biases of these media—cede central authority to decentralized groups. Instead of moving power to the center, they tend to move power to the edges. Instead of creating value from the center—like a centrally issued currency—the network creates value from the periphery.

This means the way to participate is not simply to subscribe to an abstract, already-written myth, but to do real things. To take small actions in real ways. The glory is not in the belief system or the movement, but in the doing. It's not about getting someone elected, it's about removing the obstacles to real people doing what they need to to get the job done. That's the opportunity of the networked, open source era: to drop out of the myths and actually do.

Sadly, we tend to miss the great opportunities offered us by major shifts in media.

The first great renaissance in media, the invention of the alphabet, offered a tremendous leap for participatory democracy. Only priests could read and write hieroglyphs. The invention of the alphabet opened the possibility for people to read or even possibly write, themselves. In Torah myth, Moses goes off with his father-in-law to write the laws by which an enslaved people could now live. Instead of simply accepting legislation and government as a pre-existing condition—the God Pharaoh—people would develop and write down the law as they wanted it. Even the Torah is written in the form of a contract, and God creates the world with a word.

Access to language was to change a world of blind, enslaved rule followers into a civilization of literate people. (This is what is meant when God tells Abraham "you will be a nation of priests." It means they are to be a nation of people who transcend heiro-glyphs or "priestly-writing" to become literate.)

But this isn't what happened. People didn't read Torah—they listened as their leaders read it to them. Hearing was a step up from simply following, but the promise of the new medium had not been seized.

Likewise, the invention of the printing press did not lead to a civilization of writers—it developed a culture of readers. Gentlemen sat reading books, while the printing presses were accessed by those with the money or power to use them. The people remained one step behind the technology. Broadcast radio and television are really just an extension of the printing press: expensive, one-to-many media that promote the mass distribution of the stories and ideas of a small elite.

Computers and networks finally offer us the ability to write. And we do write with them. Everyone is a blogger, now. Citizen bloggers and YouTubers who believe we have now embraced a new "personal" democracy. Personal, because we can sit safely at home with our laptops and type our way to freedom.

But writing is not the capability being offered us by these tools at all. The capability is programming—which almost none of us really know how to do. We simply use the programs that have been made for us, and enter our blog text in the appropriate box on the screen. Nothing against the strides made by citizen bloggers and journalists, but big deal. Let them eat blog.

At the very least on a metaphorical level, the opportunity here is not to write about politics or—more likely—comment on what someone else has said about politics. The opportunity, however, is to rewrite the very rules by which democracy is implemented. The opportunity of a renaissance in programming is to reconfigure the process through which democracy occurs.

If Obama is indeed elected—the first truly Internet-enabled candidate—we should take him at his word. He does not offer himself as the agent of change, but as an advocate of the change that could be enacted by people. It is not for government to create solar power, for example, but to get out of the way of all those people who are ready to implement solar power, themselves. Responding to the willingness of people to act, he can remove regulations developed on behalf of the oil industry to restrict its proliferation.

In an era when people have the ability to reprogram their reality, the job of leaders is to help facilitate this activity by tweaking legislation, or by supporting their efforts through better incentives or access to the necessary tools and capital. Change does not come from the top—but from the periphery. Not from a leader or a myth inspiring individuals to consent to it, but from people working to manifest it together.

Open Source Democracy—which I wrote about a decade ago—is not simply a way to get candidates elected to office. It is a collective reprogramming of the social software, a disengagement from the myths through which we abdicate responsibility, and a reclamation of our role as citizens who participate in the creation of the society in which we want to live.

This is not personal democracy at all, but a collective and participatory democracy where we finally accept our roles as the fully literate and engaged adults who can make this happen.

[Postscript: At the conference's closing ceremony Personal Democracy Forum founder Andrew Rasiej announced he would be changing the name of the conference to the Participatory Democracy Forum.]

Pontiac Schools THOUGHT-LEADERS "Meet and Greet"

"Meet and Greet" the New Interim Superintendent and School Board Turstees

Oakland Press

Pontiac schools' interim leader to meet with public

By DIANA DILLABER MURRAY Of The Oakland Press

PONTIAC -- Residents will have the chance to meet new Interim Superintendent Linda Paramore and learn more about school plans for fall at two events next week.

A "Meet and Greet" is planned for 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Monday where the public can meet Paramore and school board trustees. The event will be held at the Odell Nails Administration Building on Auburn Road, off northbound Woodward, with Paramore and the board of trustees.

On Tuesday, Paramore is holding a public forum from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the auditorium of Pontiac Central High School at 300 W. Huron to talk about what students and parents can expect in the fall with the new initiatives the board approved June 30.

The topics include the reconfiguration of elementary schools to include kindergarten through sixth grade in each of the 10 schools. Until now, only Rogers Elementary had a sixth grade and all other sixth-graders attended the middle schools.

This year, the three middle schools will be downsized to include only seventh- and eighth-graders.

The new preschool academy to open at Frost, with full- and part-time preparation for kindergarten as well as full- and part-time day care, will be another topic at the forum.

In addition, the advantages of the district's new centralized enrollment office will be described.

The one-stop shop for records will be installed at Whitmer Human Resource Center.

Applications for enrollment in any of Pontiac's schools will be on hand at the forum.

"We want to make sure all of the stakeholders are well informed and everyone is ready for the school year and ready to embrace these new initiatives," said Lisa Williams, former principal of Crofoot Elementary and newly appointed executive manager for instructional improvement.

"We think it is important that people have the information well in advance," said Williams, who noted Paramore has initiated the theme of "Pontiac Schools, Look Up!" for the coming school year.

In order to reach as may people as possible, the district has mailed fliers, initiated an automated phone system to notify parents, students, school personnel and community members, and publicized it on the Phoenix Center marquee.

Paramore plans to introduce the school board as well as new administrators on her team, including Williams; Felix Chow, the new interim deputy superintendent of business and auxiliary services; Anne Parker, interim manager for human resources; and Darryl Cosby, chief of security. Cosby plans to bring a public safety corps to high schools and middle schools beginning in the fall. The corps will have police authority to maintain a safe environment for learning.

In addition, a representative of the district's special education program will be there to answer questions about how changes will affect children with special needs.

"I just hope the community will come out and meet the superintendent and the board. We are looking forward to embracing a new year," Williams said.

Contact staff writer Diana Dillaber Murray at (248) 745-4638 or diana.dillaber@oakpress.com.

Pontiac Schools NEW Interim Superintendent and Interim CFO

OAKLAND PRESS

New interim superintendent for Pontiac schools chosen at meeting

By JACQUELYN GUTCOf The Oakland Press

At a special meeting held Tuesday afternoon, the Pontiac Schools Board of Trustees named Linda Paramore as the district's new interim superintendent.

Paramore served as interim chief academic officer through Oakland Schools for the past year and has presented a new curriculum that will be implemented in the schools.

Paramore is a retired curriculum administrator from the Southfield school district.

"I'm just happy to serve," she said. "I'm pleased. It's a good place. I've been here for almost a year, it's easy to fall in love with Pontiac."

She said the district will begin a search for her replacement of her position as interim chief academic officer.

The board also announced that Calvin Cupidore, who has held the post of interim superintendent for the past year, has been reassigned to work on projects the board said were critical and urgent. His term as interim superintendent expired Monday.

Board Vice President Gill Garrett said the decision to change Cupidore's position came in regard to the district choosing to move in a different direction.

"He served well as the interim superintendent in that capacity," Garrett said. "With the new assignment that was given to him, those were some things that needed to move up. Those were some items that needed to have a total focus to them."

Cupidore's main focus will be the sale of surplus properties Garrett said.

"That was one of the things that was etched on last year's budget that didn't get accomplished and now it's etched in his budget to get accomplished," Garrett said.

In a written statement, the board said: "It is hoped that with full attention to this matter, the disposition of these properties will be completed in a short time."

Garrett said the district has six vacant properties it would like to sell.

Before taking over the interim superintendent job a year ago, Cupidore had been the chief financial officer of the district for almost two years.

At Tuesday's meeting, the board announced its decision to bring Felix Chow on board as interim superintendent of business and auxiliary support services, or chief financial officer.

Chow has worked as a consultant to Oakland Schools since ending his time as superintendent of Hamtramck Public Schools in December.

"I know there's a lot of work that needs to be done," Chow said. "It's challenging, but I'm ready for the challenges."

He said he hopes to help the district set realistic expectations for what it wants to accomplish.

"I'm looking forward to working with Dr. Chow. He's very knowledgeable," Paramore said. "And there are good people in this district who really want to see the district improve. As we build leadership in the district and build leadership capacity, then when we leave we'll be able to have people move right into the positions."

Both Chow and Paramore are set to stay for the entire 2008-2009 school year, if necessary.

In the board's statement, it said it chose to work with Oakland Schools to fill the temporary positions so when the district hires a permanent superintendent, that person can hire a team of their own.

The board planned to hire a new superintendent by Tuesday, but when one of two finalists dropped out in May, trustees started the search again.

Contact staff writer Jacquelyn Gutc at (248) 745-4687 or jacquelyn.gutc@oakpress.com.

DRIVING US to Inevitable Digital Solutions

---

July 11, 2008

High Cost of Driving Ignites Online Classes Boom

By SAM DILLON

NEWTOWN, Pa. — First, Ryan Gibbons bought a Hyundai so he would not have to drive his gas-guzzling Chevy Blazer to college classes here. When fuel prices kept rising, he cut expenses again, eliminating two campus visits a week by enrolling in an online version of one of his courses.

Like Mr. Gibbons, thousands of students nationwide, including many who were previously reluctant to study online, have suddenly decided to take one or more college classes over the Internet.

“Gas prices have pushed people over the edge,” said Georglyn Davidson, director of online learning at Bucks County Community College, where Mr. Gibbons studies, and where online enrollments are up 35 percent this summer over last year.

The vast majority of the nation’s 15 million college students — at least 79 percent — live off campus, and with gas prices above $4 a gallon, many are seeking to cut commuting costs by studying online. Colleges from Massachusetts and Florida to Texas to Oregon have reported significant online enrollment increases for summer sessions, with student numbers in some cases 50 percent or 100 percent higher than last year. Although some four-year institutions with large online programs — like the University of Massachusetts and Villanova — have experienced these increases, the greatest surges have been registered at two-year community colleges, where most students are commuters, many support families and few can absorb large new expenditures for fuel.

At Bristol Community College in Fall River, Mass., for instance, online enrollments were up 114 percent this summer over last, and half the students queried cited gas costs or some other transportation obstacle as a reason for signing up to study over the Internet, said April Bellafiore, an assistant dean there.

“Online classes filled up immediately,” Ms. Bellafiore said. “It blew my mind.”

Enrollments in online classes expanded rapidly early in this decade, but growth slowed in 2006 to less than 10 percent, according to statistics compiled last year by researchers at Babson College in Massachusetts. Some recent increases reported by college officials in interviews were much larger, which they attributed to the rising cost of gasoline. Pricing policies for online courses vary by campus, but most classes cost as much as, or more than, traditional ones.

At Brevard Community College in Cocoa, Fla., online enrollment rose to 2,726 this summer from 2,190 last year, a 24.5 percent increase. “That is a dramatic increase we can only attribute to gas prices,” said Jim Drake, Brevard’s president.

Dr. Drake and officials at several other colleges expressed concern that mounting fuel costs could force some students to drop out of college altogether, especially since only a fraction of courses at most colleges are offered online. Dr. Drake has put Brevard on a four-day week to help employees and students save gas.

David Gray, chief executive of UMass Online, the distance education program at the University of Massachusetts, said that at an educators’ conference this week in San Francisco, officials from scores of universities discussed how the energy crisis could affect higher education. “There was broad agreement that gas price increases will be a source of continued growth in online enrollments,” Mr. Gray said.

Once an incidental expense, fuel for commuting to campus now costs some students half of what they pay for tuition, in some cases more. Sergey Sosnovsky, who is pursuing pre-engineering studies at Bucks County Community College, paid $240 a month for gas during the spring semester, while his full-time tuition cost about $500 a month, he said. Other students here and in half a dozen other states told similar stories.

Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield, Mo., which enrolls residents on both sides of the Arkansas-Missouri border, had 52 percent more students sign up for Internet-based courses this summer than last, said Witt Salley, the college’s director of online teaching and learning.

One student taking online coursework for the first time is Kameron Miller, a 30-year-old working mother who lives in Buffalo, Mo., 40 miles north of Springfield. Her commute to classes in her 1998 Chevy Venture during the spring semester cost her at least $200 a month for gas, Ms. Miller said. This summer, she is taking courses in health, humanities and world music — all online.

“I don’t feel I get as much out of an online class as a campus course,” Ms. Miller said. “But I couldn’t afford any other decision.”

Among the four-year institutions reporting increased online enrollment, UMass Online, which enrolls students at its five Massachusetts campuses and worldwide, experienced 46 percent growth this summer over last among students at the university’s Dartmouth, Mass., campus. At Villanova University in Pennsylvania, enrollment in online, graduate, engineering, nursing and business courses has increased more than 40 percent this summer, said Robert Stokes, an assistant vice president there.

Waiting lists for Web-based courses have lengthened at some institutions. At the University of Colorado, Denver, for instance, 361 students are on the waiting list for online courses for the fall term, compared to 233 last year on the same date, said Bob Tolsma, an assistant vice chancellor.

In Tennessee, the six universities, 13 two-year colleges and 26 technology centers overseen by the Tennessee Board of Regents enrolled 9,000 students for online courses this summer, compared with about 7,000 last summer, a 29 percent increase, said Robbie K. Melton, an associate vice chancellor.

“We had to train more faculty and provide more online courses because students just couldn’t afford to drive to our campuses,” Dr. Melton said.

Sandra Jobe, a 46-year-old bookkeeper who is studying for a master’s degree in education at Tennessee State University, said she reduced the number of trips she had to make each week to the university’s Nashville campus to two from four by enrolling in an online course.

“The campus experience is good; I wouldn’t diminish that,” Ms. Jobe said. “But when you’re penny-pinching, online is a good alternative.”

South Texas College, which has five campuses in Hidalgo and Starr Counties in the Rio Grande Valley, saw a 35 percent increase in online enrollments this summer over last, said William Serrata, a vice president. Other years have seen summer increases of 10 percent to 15 percent, he said. “This really speaks to students’ not wanting to travel due to the gas prices,” Mr. Serrata said.

Elvira Ozuna, who is 37 and studying for an associate’s degree in occupational therapy, was driving four times a week, 50 miles round trip from her home to South Texas College’s campus in McAllen. But this summer she enrolled in two online courses, eliminating that commute.

Ms. Ozuna said she found online work more difficult than classroom study. “But I saved on the gasoline,” she said.

Distance education is no silver bullet that can alone solve the challenges posed for higher education by rising gasoline prices, officials warned.

For one thing, many students, especially in rural areas, lack the high-speed Internet connections on which online courses depend.

“The infrastructure doesn’t exist to give all rural students clear online access,” said Stephen G. Katsinas, a professor at the University of Alabama. “Rural America is where the digital divide is most dramatic.”

Furthermore, most colleges still offer only a fraction of their courses over the Internet. Bucks County Community College, for instance, will offer 414 credit courses during the fall term. Only 103 of those will be offered online, and another 48 as hybrid courses, that is, partly online but with some campus visits required. So most students will still need to come to campus.

Mr. Gibbons, who is 20, works days and aspires to be a writer. He said his online course, “Introduction to the Novel,” had been a good experience, especially the Web-based discussions of Jane Austen’s novels. (He likes posting comments by e-mail better than speaking in class.) He said he still preferred on-campus study, “but with the price of gas jumping up, I’ll probably be taking more courses online now.”

By Design: BEGIN with the END in MIND! (Model the Practice)

Edutopia

http://www.edutopia.org/ikid-digital-learner-technology-2008

Informs our 21st Century Understanding

Nets for students 2007

1.	Creativity and Innovation
	Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. Students:
	a. apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes. b. create original works as a means of personal or group expression. c. use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues. d. identify trends and forecast possibilities.
2.	Communication and Collaboration
	Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students:
	a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media. b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats. c. develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures. d. contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.
3.	Research and Information Fluency
	Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students:
	a. plan strategies to guide inquiry. b. locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media. c. evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks. d. process data and report results.
4.	Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
	Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources. Students:
	a. identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation. b. plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project. c. collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions. d. use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternative solutions.
5.	Digital Citizenship
	Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. Students:
	a. advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology. b. exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity. c. demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning. d. exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.
6.	Technology Operations and Concepts
	Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations. Students:
	a. understand and use technology systems. b. select and use applications effectively and productively. c. troubleshoot systems and applications. d. transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.

© 2007 International Society for Technology in Education. ISTE® is a registered trademark of the International Society for Technology in Education.

World rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system—without prior written permission from the publisher. Contact Permissions Editor, ISTE, 180 W. 8th Avenue, Suite 300
Eugene, OR 97401-2916 USA; fax: 1.541.302.3780; e-mail: permissions@iste.org or visit www.iste.org/permissions/.

• National Educational Technology Standards for Students 2007 (pdf)
• NETS•S 2007 Student Profiles (pdf)
• NETS•S 2007 Essential Conditions (pdf)

21st Century Digital Learning Environments

By DESIGN: BEGIN with the END in MIND!

Creating the 21st-Century Classroom

Preparing today’s youth to succeed in the digital economy requires a new kind of teaching and learning. Skills such as global literacy, computer literacy, problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, and innovation have become critical in today’s increasingly interconnected workforce and society--and technology is the catalyst for bringing these changes into the classroom.

In a 21st-century learning environment, all students are able to learn. Project-based learning allows students to acquire 21st-century skills in the context of real-world scenarios, and the integration of video and other media to support instruction links students with outside resources and enables teachers to address many learning styles at once. In fact, the 21st-century learning environment doesn’t just wait for teachable moments; it literally creates them at will.

At eSchool News, we’ve seen schools transforming through the use of technology to meet the needs of a new, tech-savvy generation of learners. Now, with the generous support of AVPartners, we’ve combed our archives to assemble our best content related to the creation of 21st-century classrooms. We hope you’ll take a few minutes to peruse these resources and learn how other educators are defining 21st-century learning as you strive to implement this vision of education in your own schools.

. --The Editors

eSchool News Articles

• 
  eSN Special Report: Visual Learning
  Wed, Jan 02, 2008 Primary Topic Channel: Video technologies
  These are special times for visual learning. Spurred by dramatic advances in digital technology, the use of video as an instructional tool is finally coming into its own as a mainstream feature of American education. [ Read More ]

• 
  Voters urge teaching of 21st-century skills
  Mon, Oct 15, 2007 Primary Topic Channel: Research
  Results of a new poll commissioned by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills shows the vast majority of U.S. voters believe students are ill-equipped to compete in the global learning environment, and that schools must incorporate 21st-century skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, communication and self-direction, and computer and technology skills into the curriculum. But the upcoming presidential election, researchers say, presents a perfect opportunity to charter a new path to success for America's students. [ Read More ]

• 
  Public wants more tech in classrooms
  Wed, Aug 01, 2007 Primary Topic Channel: 21st Century skills
  Americans recognize the importance of technology in reforming the nation's schools and making them relevant for the 21st century, a new survey suggests--but they disagree on how schools should impart key 21st-century skills to their students. [ Read More ]

• 
  21st-century school represents 'the will to change'
  Tue, May 01, 2007 Primary Topic Channel: Multimedia
  At the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering in Stamford, Connecticut, educators have turned a 40-year-old school building into a modern model for teaching and learning. And if it can be done here, school leaders say, it can be done anywhere. [ Read More ]

• Creating a '21st-century school' for learning and working together
  Sun, Oct 01, 2006 Primary Topic Channel: 21st Century skills
  Like many school systems, Maryland's Charles County Public Schools had different tracks for high school students who were going on to college and those pursuing vocational training. This outdated model ultimately reduced the status of voc ed to a lower level than academic programs. James Richmond, our district superintendent, championed the idea of a 21st- century school that would bring vocational and academic students together in one facility. [ Read More ]

• 
  W.Va. focuses on 21st-century learning
  Thu, Apr 06, 2006 Primary Topic Channel: 21st Century skills
  As educators nationwide consider ways to address the need for 21st-century learning, West Virginia appears to be ahead of the curve and could serve as a model for other states to follow. [ Read More ]

• 
  'Interactive teaching' engages learners
  Wed, May 11, 2005 Primary Topic Channel: Handheld technologies
  A wireless handheld technology similar to the remote control you use to control your television set is transforming large, impersonal college lecture courses into dynamic, interactive learning labs. Although initiated mostly in colleges, this style of instruction--dubbed "interactive teaching" by its proponents--has potential far beyond the lecture hall. [ Read More ]

• 
  Audio-visual technology a bright spot on college campuses
  Tue, Dec 06, 2005 Primary Topic Channel: Research,Multimedia
  At least half of the nation's higher-education classrooms will be equipped with digital projectors, control systems, audio or video conferencing equipment, or other audio-visual (AV) technology within the next five years, a new study projects. [ Read More ]

• 
  NC Gov. announces 21st Century Center
  Fri, Apr 22, 2005 Primary Topic Channel: School Administration ,21st Century skills
  Faced with the challenge of preparing today's students for success in anincreasingly global economy, North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, April 21,announced the development of a first-of-its-kind Center for 21st CenturySkills. [ Read More ]

CHANGE the SYSTEM not the INTENTION!

Change system for sake of students

BY MIKE FLANAGAN • June 29, 2008

Narrow thinkers wanting to water down the new high school graduation requirements have wrongly bleated that the new Michigan Merit Curriculum is "cookie cutter," because it expects that all kids will learn the same rigorous academic content.

Well, it is not the curriculum that is cookie cutter; it's the current educational system, which wants all kids to fit in that box we call a classroom, when some just won't. We don't need to change the new requirements. We need to change the system.

We developed this new Michigan Merit Curriculum with the expectation that schools would expand learning opportunities in new and creative ways. Students can, for example, receive

Algebra II, chemistry and economics credits through online courses, career tech programs, and project-based learning.

Some school districts, like Wyandotte, are figuring it out and developing ways to reach every student and teach them the needed standards. I applaud them for embracing the reality that all kids can learn higher levels of math, science, English and social studies. When we broaden our ways of teaching students, we can have high expectations of them, and they will respond. I am a proven example of that.

I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and was a bit on the rough edge when my family moved out to the suburbs of Long Island. Needless to say, I didn't quite fit in, and school for me was not going well.
When I was in the eighth grade, a teacher who thought I could be doing better got me into a program called the 89ers -- eighth-grade students doing ninth-grade work. Heck, I wasn't even doing seventh-grade work at the time. But the teachers and the school expected and believed we could do it. They believed in us and approached our education in a different way, and we succeeded. It turned my life around.

Just because someone thinks a certain group of students "can't" learn a certain subject doesn't mean those students don't "need" to learn those subjects. In this globally competitive world we now live in, all our students need to learn higher level concepts. Anyone who claims otherwise is setting up our students and our state for failure now and into the future.

Michigan's unemployment rate is the highest it has been since 1992. Is that because there are no jobs available? No. There are some 80,000 jobs available in Michigan today, but they are jobs that require the higher-level knowledge and skills that the Michigan Merit Curriculum will prime.

We want Michigan's high school diploma to mean that every student has received a bona fide, high-quality education upon which employers can depend. We want a Michigan high school diploma that means something, and that is globally competitive.

We must resist every effort to wilt and water down our nationally renowned graduation standards. The key to success in this drive to the top is the willingness to accept the need to change. We can't keep doing what we've always done and expect different outcomes.

In today's workforce, college-ready is the same as work-ready for what employers need. Someone recently alarmed me when he said: "My waitress doesn't need algebra." I was floored! I believe that all work is honorable, but what if that waitress, or store clerk, or landscaper wants to change careers and needs to go to college? Will they have the math and science background to go on and study to become a medical technician or architect?

How do we know which ninth-grade students will want to enter what career five or 10 years down the road? I refuse to predetermine that. All kids need to complete the Michigan Merit Curriculum.

For this rigorous curriculum to really work, however, we need to re-imagine what our current education system is. We need a system that meets the needs of all students, in a manner that meets their needs and the needs of employers. The classroom of the past 50-plus years no longer is relevant to all of today's students.

MIKE FLANAGAN is Michigan's superintendent of public instruction. Write to him in care of the Free Press Editorial Page, 615 W. Lafayette, Detroit, MI 48226 or at oped@freepress.com.


Don't give up on plan for higher grades

Legislators should give new tougher standards a chance to work

June 29, 2008


There's just no point in jettisoning a life preserver before you know whether it'll float.

Yet the very policy that promises, long term, to lift up generations of Michigan high school students is in jeopardy of being picked apart before it's had a chance to pay off.

The standards are just now going into full effect.

Yet, at the same time, a House subcommittee on high school alternatives has begun re-examining its success and holding hearings on a range of possible changes, the most controversial of which could create an alternative diploma and tweak some of the state's math mandates.

While the process is just beginning, every legislator ought to lend a cautious eye so that Michigan doesn't prematurely gut the rigor out of its efforts to raise the educational bar.
State Rep. Hoon-Yung Hopgood, D-Taylor, insists the subcommittee isn't out to undo the standards.

"We're looking at how kids are getting through the graduation requirements," explained Hopgood. "It may be that there can be a fine-tuning to help prevent the bad outcome, which is kids just having a lot of frustration and a lack of success with the requirements."

It's true the state's new standards warrant monitoring, if only because increasing the numbers of high school graduates is a central piece of the state's economic strategy.

But monitoring and meddling are two different things. Michigan wasted at least 20 years ignoring the importance of toughness in high school graduation standards. The price of that choice is implicit in the legions of unemployed and undereducated citizens throughout the state.

Any knee-jerk relaxation of the standards only adds to the state's negatives in the eyes of companies looking for high skills workers.

This is not to say Michigan has put a problem-free policy on the books. What government ever meets that mark? But the change Michigan has adopted is solid and drastic enough to star in the national discussion about the direction all American high schools have to travel to compete in the 21st Century. With all eyes finally fixed on Michigan for something positive, the Legislature should be leery of relinquishing the chance to lead.

Michigan has yet to even graduate a class of students under the new standards; leaders who now want to undercut the policy don't have a clear enough picture of its weaknesses or its strengths to determine what needs fixing.

Yes, it's alarming to learn that more than 20% of freshmen in the Class of 2011 -- the first to graduate under Michigan's new standards -- failed Algebra I in the most recent school year.

Legislators are right to question what's being done to ensure that those students don't fail further. But one of the ideas being discussed is weakening the need for Algebra II, an off-point overreaction to the early results.

It's better to start with a dialogue about whether local boards of education and school districts are alerting students to options built into the policy, such as completing Algebra II over two years or via career technical courses. Under that policy, for instance, school districts are supposed to establish personal curriculum teams to evaluate options for students at risk of falling short of proficiency.

Given the length of some of the policy's fine print, it's a reasonable conclusion that many local boards and districts have only skimmed the surface of the option available to help struggling students. Maybe the tweak legislators should be examining is with the communications between the state Department of Education, school districts and boards, not the overall policy.

Focusing on that process first could keep the state from needlessly dummying-down one of the smartest steps Michigan has taken to retool its future.

AIM for TRANSFORMATION (Champion)

ROCHELLE RILEY

Where is the outrage over DPS?

BY ROCHELLE RILEY • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • June 24, 2008

This is what doesn't make sense to me.

State regulators are investigating why it took the public utilities Detroit Edison and Consumers Energy days to restore power to 700,000 to 800,000 residents after recent storms. The Michigan Public Service Commission, its director said, "has an obligation to ensure that utilities are providing customers with reasonably reliable service."

The commission is holding public hearings this week across the state.

So, if somebody in Lansing is investigating the utilities, why isn't somebody in Lansing investigating the lost power in the Detroit Public Schools? The lights went out there nearly 10 years ago, and ever since, the district has stumbled around in the dark, fighting over contracts and jobs, while the kids suffer. Are the children not as important as melted ice cream and defrosted steaks?

A whole lot of nots

Dr. Connie Calloway, the new superintendent who has spent her first year digging through dirt and incompetence and traditions that don't make sense, revealed some startling news two weeks ago during an interview:

She confirmed what critics have known for some time, that DPS is not graduating nearly two-thirds of its students.

She confirmed that 22 of the city's 27 high schools did not make required annual yearly progress -- required progress.

She confirmed that DPS has been rife with such incompetence that students did not receive textbooks at the start of the year for 19 years.

She confirmed that the FBI investigation into DPS is not over.

And she confirmed that the district's budget is about the same as it was eight years ago, even though the number of employees and students has dropped by a third. In 2000, the district spent $1.2 billion to pay 21,203 employees to serve 154,648 students. Last school year, the district spent the same amount of money to pay 15,535 employees and serve 105,000 students. What is being done with the extra money?

After those revelations, parents did not march, teachers did not rally, and Detroit legislators did not hold news conferences to say enough is enough.

But when district officials announced that there might be teacher layoffs to offset a budget deficit that is $400 million counting this year and next, folks jumped up then. The teachers aren't wrong to protest. The district has so much fat and gristle it can cut plenty before it gets to teachers, including administrators -- especially administrators.

A call to action

So my question remains: Why is the state not investigating? How can a public entity be allowed to dysfunction for so long, turning out graduates who cannot read, students who cannot last more than a semester in college, or students who do not have the skills to work? I didn't need to read a study. I know some of these students. I worked with some of these students. I cried at night about some of these students.

Since the power outage debacle, I've seen TV commercials apologizing for the letdown. The school district has not apologized to children or parents or taxpayers. But when will elected officials in Lansing who keep throwing good money after bad on a dysfunctional district, stop turning their heads away from the problem -- like a car wreck they can't bear to watch -- and do something?

It just doesn't make sense.

Please join the conversation about this column at www.freep.com/rochelleriley.


ROCHELLE RILEY

Kids are suffering in Detroit Public Schools mess

BY ROCHELLE RILEY • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • June 26, 2008

The e-mail could have been written by any suburbanites who responded to my column about the lack of outrage over the failing Detroit Public Schools.

The writer said there was no outrage because "the chips are all cashed in and there is NO hope left and people have stopped giving a rip. This is DPS -- it's over. Done. Stick a fork in it. Jesus Christ himself would have his hands full with that cesspool of failure, corruption and incompetence. Just need to find a way for the 900,000 left to speed to the exits in order to save their lives vs. being pawns to prop up a long failed institution so we can continue to pay the incompetents."

In my column, I asked why the state would investigate something as simple as a delay in getting power restored after massive storms, but would not investigate the dysfunction of the billion-dollar behemoth known as the DPS. The writer said:

"As for power outages we KNOW if we are outraged it WILL get fixed; even faster. We have hope; we know it will get better. We are way past outrage in DPS and Detroit city government in general. We are on to sickened, embarrassed and just plain tired of it all. We do not care what happens to DPS, we just hope it happens quickly rather than this slow blood loss to death; and that we rescue as many kids as possible from this burning building."

What about the children?

Here's the problem, dear readers, whether your kids study elsewhere or not, whether you think you have a stake in this or not: No one is rescuing the kids from the burning building. As a matter of fact, folks have stopped watching the building burn. It's like wildfires that take the houses in California. You know they're happening, and you're glad they're happening someplace else.

My question -- where is the outrage? -- wasn't meant to ask literally why people aren't outraged, dear readers. It was meant to spur outrage. It was meant to say: Get up! Stand up! These are children, for God's sake! How can anyone who is an advocate for children in Michigan just watch? If these children were puppies, there would be lines of cars and trucks from across the state to take them to safety.

What we would do for animals, we won't do for these children? And all because some Detroiters reject help from people who aren't black, aren't connected or aren't taking from that big ball of cheese known as the billion-dollar budget? Folks, it is time to move the cheese.

We need to act, now

DPS Superintendent Connie Calloway says her plans to reform the district have been hampered by discoveries of ineptitude, possible criminal behavior and the kind of bookkeeping and record-keeping that would require Internal Revenue Service help to figure out. Her critics say any good superintendent can multitask, cleaning up the bad while pushing the good.

While they fight, children suffer.

When these thousands of children leave a school district without graduating, without being able to read, without being able to be employed, they will take one of two roads -- hard lives one step ahead of abject poverty or the sinister methods of pursuing happiness.

Either way, our tax dollars will go to them. We better wake up!

Please join the conversation about this column at www.freep.com/rochelleriley.

NSF ITEST GRANT Advisory Board Meeting

Digital Convergence Goes LIVE!

Emerging Technology Could Drive Interest in STEM Careers! Who knew?

21st Century Learners
By Cathleen Richardson

What do we really know about today’s youth? As educators, do we truly understand how they think, learn, communicate, and socialize? As if you didn’t know by now, they don’t perform any of the aforementioned skills in any manner like the youth of years past. Our students live in a digital world, altered by ever-changing technology. The youth of today can instant message on their laptop, talk on a cell phone, play a video game wirelessly with a friend down the street and chew bubble gum - all at the same time.

These "Screenagers" are undeniably different. They are authors of blogs, designers of web sites, and developers of ring tones. They have created an entire language of their own using abbreviated terms such as LOL (laugh out loud), BRB (be right back), POS (parent over the shoulder), MIRL (meet in real life) and BTDT (been there, done that). The bottom line is that these students learn and comprehend in a way that is foreign to many of us, and, as a result, they often feel disconnected from traditional teachers and schools of yesteryear.

Digital students are goal-oriented and able to pursue multiple outcomes at the same time. This generation of 21st Century learners can absorb a great deal of information at super-charged speed whether it is transmitted via a cell phone, television, the Internet, or MP3 player.

Digital students are masters of varying types of technology. These students are always connected with their peers and the world through technology. The digital generation has unknowingly incorporated 21st Century skills into their day-to-day lives by becoming innovators, creative designers, critical thinkers, collaborators, and complex problem-solvers.

While these students are having fun, they are also learning.

At a recent conference, Terry Jones, founder and former CEO of Travelocity.com told the audience a fascinating story. His son, a digital native, co-created a now popular computer game called “Day of Defeat” with four students from the United States, five from Europe and one from Canada. Interestingly, they never met! They collaborated and created this game solely via email and chat interactions.

Digital students are determined, focused on success and creators of their own destiny. This knowledge forces us to pause, ponder and then pose a series of additional questions. According to Speak Up, an online research project, which annually surveys K-12 students, teachers, parents, and school administrators, these are some key educational questions educators should be focusing on:

• What are the benefits of emerging technologies such as mobile devices, gaming in education, online learning and open education resources?
  
• What would happen if emerging technology were used to get students interested in STEM careers?
  
• What are the barriers/challenges to using technology?
  

The reality is that many schools aren’t ready or willing to address these questions. The traditional educational view of drill and practice and test taking is a difficult concept to abandon or reconsider for many educators. This is where the disconnect begins. Alan November, a recognized leader in the field of educational technology, lists on his website comments from workshop attendees on the future of education.

One workshop participant stated, “Hope can overcome fear when barriers are torn down, by allowing students to engage in a forum they are comfortable they take ownership of their learning and the teachers will be willing to change from the role of information giver to facilitator.”

Now that we know more about the digital generation, is it possible as educators that we need to rethink who we are? We must re-evaluate the practice of teaching and learning and equip our students with the necessary tools to help them advance in this digital age. Acknowledging who these students are and meeting them on their current playing field will bridge the digital gap and connect us all to the 21st Century.

John Dewey, a well-known educational reformer, says it best, “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”

Next, we’ll delve more into the minds of this digital generation and explore what experts say about this extraordinary group of learners.

Update: 21st Century Schools Fund Legislation

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Editorial

21st Century Schools Fund could rescue failing districts

We liked Gov. Jennifer Granholm's 21st Century Schools Fund when she first proposed it in February. We like it even better now that a strong measure of accountability has been built in.

The proposal would provide $300 million to create small, responsive schools that will be required to graduate 80 percent of their students or lose their state funding.

The state Legislature should support the idea, with these conditions: The proposal must provide funding to innovative public charter school operators, an idea Granholm says she supports, and the accountability should have legal teeth. Legislators should build the 80 percent graduation requirement into state law and not leave enforcement to the discretion of the state school superintendent.

Lawmakers are being lobbied by the teachers union to strip charter schools of eligibility to participate in the program. That would be a serious mistake.

After all, the fund is largely modeled after charters. It's strikingly similar to Detroit's University Prep Academy, which promises to graduate 90 percent of its students. Such an outcomes-based approach is needed in Michigan schools.

Granholm's program would provide both the incentive and the funding for failing schools to transform. A bipartisan panel developed the program's guidelines. Eligible schools would have to be small, with no more than 450 students, and give principals full control of staffing decisions.

What's most noteworthy is its accountability mechanism. Only schools that graduate 80 percent of their students would be eligible to keep the $3 million grants, which could be used for breaking mammoth high schools into smaller ones or other education innovations. Schools that don't meet the graduation standard would have to pay back half of the money.

That sort of accountability is unheard of in state government.

Only schools with graduation rates of 65 percent or lower -- or academies located in such low-achieving neighborhoods -- would be eligible.

Last week the bill moved to the state Senate, where Appropriations Chairman Ron Jelinek, R-Three Oaks, is threatening to kill it, calling small schools no panacea. Jelinek seems to be missing the education crisis in Michigan, in which fewer than 75 percent of students graduate from high school and in urban districts fewer than one-third.

What we're doing now isn't working. The small schools model has shown success elsewhere and deserves a chance. So far, Jelinek hasn't offered a better idea for rescuing children who are being failed by the state's public schools.

The 21st Century Schools Fund is more than about size. Its principal-controlled schools would root out under-performing teachers. And the funding would give districts powerful leverage in seeking teacher union contract changes.

The 21st Century Schools Fund marks the sort of dramatic change Michigan needs to address the unacceptable failure of its public schools.

Disrupting Class! (Finally Publishes)

Interview: http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/books/mp3files/christensen.mp3

A crash course in the business of learning-from the bestselling author of The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution…

“A brilliant teacher, Christensen brings clarity to a muddled and chaotic world of education.”
-Jim Collins, bestselling author of Good to Great

According to recent studies in neuroscience, the way we learn doesn't always match up with the way we are taught. If we hope to stay competitive-academically, economically, and technologically-we need to rethink our understanding of intelligence, reevaluate our educational system, and reinvigorate our commitment to learning. In other words, we need “disruptive innovation.”

Now, in his long-awaited new book, Clayton M. Christensen and coauthors Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson take one of the most important issues of our time-education-and apply Christensen's now-famous theories of “disruptive” change using a wide range of real-life examples. Whether you're a school administrator, government official, business leader, parent, teacher, or entrepreneur, you'll discover surprising new ideas, outside-the-box strategies, and straight-A success stories.

You'll learn how

Customized learning will help many more students succeed in school
Student-centric classrooms will increase the demand for new technology
Computers must be disruptively deployed to every student
Disruptive innovation can circumvent roadblocks that have prevented other attempts at school reform
We can compete in the global classroom-and get ahead in the global market

Filled with fascinating case studies, scientific findings, and unprecedented insights on how innovation must be managed, Disrupting Class will open your eyes to new possibilities, unlock hidden potential, and get you to think differently. Professor Christensen and his coauthors provide a bold new lesson in innovation that will help you make the grade for years to come.

The future is now. Class is in session.


Biographical note


Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is author or coauthor of five books including the New York Times bestsellers The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution.

Michael B. Hornis a cofounder and Executive Director of Innosight Institute. He holds an AB from Yale and an MBA from Harvard.

Curtis W. Johnson is a writer and consultant who has served as a college president, head of a public policy research organization, and chief of staff to governor Arne Carlson of Minnesota. Johnson and his colleagues were among the early proponents of what has become the chartered school movement.


Back cover copy


WARNING: THIS BOOK WILL CHALLENGE
EVERYTHING YOU EVER LEARNED-ABOUT LEARNING

“After a barrage of business books that purport to 'fix' American education, at last a book that speaks thoughtfully and imaginatively about what genuinely individualized education canbe like and how to bring it about.”-Howard Gardner, author of Five Minds for the Future

“A decade ago, Clayton Christensen wrote a masterpiece, The Innovator's Dilemma, that transformed the way business looks at innovation. Now, he and two collaborators, Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson, have come up with another, focusing his groundbreaking theories of disruptive innovation on education."-David Gergen, US Presidential Advisor

“Clayton Christensen's insights just might shake many of us in education out of our complacency and into a long needed disruptive discourse about really fixing our schools. This will be a welcome change after decades in which powerful calls to action have resulted in only marginal improvements for our nation's school children.”-Vicki Phillips, director of Education, Gates Foundation

“Full of strategies that are both bold and doable, this brilliant and seminal book shows how we can utilize technology to customize learning. I recommend it most enthusiastically.”-Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester (NY) Teachers Association, and vice president of the American Federation of Teachers

"Finally we have a book from the business community that gets it. Disrupting Class from Clayton Christensen and colleagues points out that motivation is central to learning and that if schools and learning are to be transformed as they must be, motivation must be at the center of the work. They also point out how technology should be used to personalize learning and what the future might look like for schools. A must read for anyone thinking and worrying about where education should be headed."-Paul Houston, Executive Director, American Association of School Administrators

“Powerful, proven strategies for moving education from stagnation to evolution.”-Christopher Dede, Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies, Harvard Graduate School of Education

“Clayton Christensen and colleagues describe how disruptive technologies will personalize and, as a result, revolutionize learning. Every education leader should read this book, set aside their next staff meeting to discuss it, and figure out how they can be part of the improvement wave to come.”-Tom Vander Ark, President, X PRIZE Foundation

“In Disrupting Class, Christensen, Horn and Johnson argue that the next round of innovation in school reform will involve learning software. While schools have resisted integrating technology for instruction, today's students are embracing technology in their everyday lives. This book offers promise to education reformers.”-Kathleen McCartney, Dean, Harvard Graduate School of Education

State Superintendent: On Change, Monsters, Technology and apparent alignment to our purpsoe!

There's No Monster Under the Bed

By John Bebow - June 6, 2008

By Mike Flanagan
State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Forget that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

We have nothing to fear but fear of change.

Michigan has begun its ascent to the top of the world's job chain with the most rigorous high school graduation requirements, an aggressive worker training program, and a growing realization that we need more college graduates in the high-demand careers of the 21st Century.

Education is the key to Michigan's economic future. But it is the future's education that takes us from the system we’ve had over the past millennium and prepares our state for not only greatness, but survival.

But change is difficult for those who are entrenched in the current system. That attitude may serve them, but it certainly doesn’t serve our students or state.

Michigan's new high school graduation requirements, called the Michigan Merit Curriculum, are heralded as groundbreaking, and were strongly supported by the education associations in Michigan, the State Board of Education, and state Legislature before Governor Jennifer Granholm enacted the new law in 2006.

The new law ensures that all Michigan students receive the high quality education they need and deserve, no matter what future career path they choose. The knowledge that students gain with the Michigan Merit Curriculum is needed today whether they go on to a post-secondary program or directly into the workplace after high school.

There is a campaign being waged to weaken and water down these new graduation requirements. It is a campaign based upon a fear of change.

Those who are unwilling to change claim that all kids aren't going on to college and don't need to take higher level math and science studies. They claim that thousands more high school students will drop out. They claim that school shouldn't be taught in "cookie-cutter" fashion. These claims are alarmist and are no way based in fact, and only meant to monger and perpetuate the fear and ignorance of change.

There is no need to alter the new high school graduation requirements. There is flexibility built into the law that addresses the needs of all students. The law allows for flexible schedules and support programs for students to learn the requirements through programs outside of the traditional courses. They can earn the graduation credits in a Career and Technical program, in an Early College program that is career focused, or in numerous other programs. The law also allows for a flexible pathway for Students with Disabilities, through a Personal Curriculum plan.

We want a Michigan high school diploma to mean that every student has received a bona fide high quality education upon which employers can understand and depend. We want a Michigan high school diploma to mean something, and that is globally competitive.

That is why we must resist every effort to wilt and water down our nationally-renowned graduation standards.

The key to success in this drive to the top is the willingness to accept the need to change. We can’t keep doing what we’ve always done and expect different outcomes.

For this rigorous curriculum to work, we need to retrofit our education system. We need a system that meets the needs of ALL students, in a manner that meets their needs and the needs of employers. Governor Granholm has proposed a 21st Century Schools Fund to develop small, more personal high schools that build the relationships that accentuate the relevance of the curriculum.

Accelerated technology sweeps over our society at a dizzying pace. Why do some students have the advantages of these technologies and others don’t? Why don't we have technology steering classroom instruction in our schools? If they are going to be using advancing technology in the workplace, shouldn't they be learning with it in school? Students use hand-held technology in every part of their daily lives except in education. No wonder they are bored in school.

The classroom of the past 50-plus years no longer is relevant to today's students – even as young as pre-Kindergarten. Recent studies reveal that it is a lack of real-life relevance in our schools that is frustrating our high school students and giving them a hopeless reason to drop out. We need to re-design how we deliver education, from early childhood through post-secondary, and we need to do it quickly and collaboratively.

Is this new curriculum really the monster under the bed? Or is it a fear of change on the part of some educators who don't want to take on the challenge of teaching every student in their school? Or is it parents who struggled in school and don’t feel their kids need it. Well, all kids do need it. I am convinced that all kids can learn algebra and chemistry, just like they can learn how to write grammatically correct and understand how their government works.

To overcome this fear, we need school administrators working with teachers—working with higher education—working with business—working with parents—working with private foundations to configure an education system that is inclusive, relevant, rigorous, accountable, and flexible enough to reach every child in Michigan.

This ultimate reform will need courage to succeed. Long-standing differences need to be put aside. Staunch, long-held beliefs need to be buried. Turf battles need to selflessly collapse. The only special interest group that matters is the students.

21st Century Small High Schools and Renewable Energy Initiatives

Posted: Friday, 30 May 2008 11:11AM

Gov Asks For Small High Schools, Renewable Power Standard

Gov. Jennifer Granholm offered business a share of the savings in a plan to reduce the number of state prison inmates in her speech Friday at the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference.

And she proposed a "21st Century School Fund" to create 100 small, academically challenging high schools across the state.

Granholm began by reviewing Michigan's economic challenge -- the loss of 330,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000 as part of a national flight of manufacturing jobs overseas, and Big Three market share falling from 70 percent in 1990 to 45 percent today.

But she also pointed to dozens of big investments in the state in recent years by companies in her targeted areas of alternative energy, the life sciences, advanced manufacturing and homeland security. And she touted her continuing overseas investment missions, especially alternative energy efforts in Sweden.

Granholm said she was asking the Legislature and the crowd at Mackinac to back three initiatives -- the 21sts Century School Fund, a mandate that 10 percent of the state's power must come from renewable sources by 2015, and the prison reform plan.

Granholm said the small high school plan is part of an overall effort to "attack, declare war, on the dropout problem." She said Michigan "must replace those large, impersonal high schools that fail with small, challenging high schools that work." She also backed more "middle colleges," five-year high schools that graduate their students with an associate's degree or other usable career credential. She said the 21st Century Schools Fund would require no new taxes, only a redirection of existing revenue.

More broadly, Granholm said of education, the state needs to flip education on its head to meet the needs of employers. "We don't want people to get degrees in French or political science," she said. "Those are my degrees, so I can say that. We want people to get degrees in areas we need," such as health care.

Granholm also asked -- as she did last year -- for the renewable energy standard, which has been tied up in the Legislature over complaints that it remonopolizes the state's electric market, and doesn't go far enough to mandate renewable energy.

However, Granholm said the lack of the standard means Michigan is losing out on massive investments that are occurring elsewhere in renewable energy.

Granholm also touted her record as a cost-cutter, pointing out that she's cut more out of state budgets than any Michigan governor in history, that Michigan is now 46th in state employees per capita, and that the state is leading the nation in putting state business online.

But she said one area of state government is skyrocketing in staff and costs: corrections. She said Michigan's corrections staff has grown from 5 percent of state employment to more than 20 percent, and that Michigan incarcerates its citizens at a rate far higher than its neighbors -- with no appreciable effect on crime rates.

Granholm, a former prosecutor, said that "I will not allow violent criminals to be released into society, period." But she said there are ways to trim the prison population by selectively releasing low-risk inmates. And she proposed sharing any savings on a one-third basis between law enforcement, higher education and a reduction in the Michigan Business Tax surcharge.

In opening her speech, Granholm joked about her recent surgery for bowel obstruction, saying she pleaded with the doctor not to use the word "bowel" in public comments, and that state Republicans were in no way responsible for the "obstruction." And, she said, the last thing she remembered before the anesthesia took her under was her surgeon saying, "You know, I'm a Republican..."

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