The Educational Model of the Future

Hi, it’s Dave with another 21st Century Education blog. Today, I want to talk about something that’s been on my mind lately - the future of Public Education.
Today, I read an article in the Hartford Courant about parochial schools (schools run by churches) in Connecticut by the Roman Catholic Church. In the past four years, the number of students attending these schools has decreased from 18 thousand to 14 thousand, or about 20%. In 1965, or 50 years ago, there were 54 thousand students in these schools. The total population of school-aged children has gone up in the past 50 years, so why are these schools struggling to attract students?
It turns out that the major decrease in enrollment at the parochial schools, as well as the independent schools (aka private, non-religious schools) has been caused by students attending the charter and magnet schools. The first charter school in the country was founded in 1991, or the year I graduated from High School. Prior to that, parents had the choice of sending their kids to the public schools, the independent schools or the parochial schools. So, my parents took me to visit one of each type of school, before ultimately sending me to my public school. Now, though, parents have other options instead of just these three - charter schools and magnet schools among the choices. Here is the differences between them:
Charter Schools - run by a private organization (CMO, or Charter Management Organization); take 10% of the school’s income to pay the CMO for running the school (Management Fee); abide by the state’s laws in hiring (teachers need to have state certification), but can get permission to bypass certain laws; usually non-unionized, unless the CMO approves it (which is rare - this allows salaries to be lower); general curriculum; required to test students with state-approved standardized tests; admission to the school is (in CT, at least) by lottery; can expell students for any reason, which allows the school to keep only those students who will increase their test scores;
Magnet Schools - run by a RESC (Regional Education Service Center, or a non-profit, semi-public organization approved by the state, but not run by the government); must abide by state laws with respect to hiring; unionized (as any public school district - this allows salaries to be higher, but not quite as high as the public schools); each school has a specific curriculum which attracts certain types of students (hence the label Magnet); curriculum is based on the magnet school’s mission (i.e. art schools have an art-based curriculum); required to test students with state-approved standardized tests; admission to the school is (in CT, at least) by lottery; can expel students for any reason, which allows the school to keep only those students who will increase their test scores;
Parochial Schools - run by a church (usually Catholic); tuition-based (no funding from the state or town); lower tuition (about $5000 or less per student per year); not required to use standardized tests; non-unionized; teachers do not need to be certified by the state (hence lower salaries); design their own curriculum, usually including religion classes; admission to school based on acceptance by school or church - usually accept those who are members of the church without exception; can expel students, but usually don’t due to tuition being paid;
Independent Schools - run by a non-profit; tuition-based (no funding from the state or town); higher tuition (about $10000 or more per student per year); not required to use standardized tests; non-unionized; teachers do not need to be certified by the state (hence lower salaries); design their own curriculum; admission to school based on acceptance by school - usually accept students who are a good fit for the school; can expel students, but usually don’t due to tuition being paid;
Public Schools - run by a town or regional district; required to follow state laws regarding certification; required to test students using state-approved tests; cannot choose their students - if a child lives in the district, the school must accept them; required to support special needs students in the district, regardless of what school they attend (public, magnet or charter, only; not required for those attending parochial schools or some independent schools;

The major difference between the schools is who pays. In public districts, students are supported by the town/district taxes. Sometimes, the state will support them, but in recent years, Governor Malloy has cut funding for these schools, requiring increased local taxes and cutting of programs. In parochial and independent schools, they are supported by tuition with no state funding. This model works like the economy - the better the education, the more the tuition a family pays. Unfortunately, these schools have had to raise tuition or conolidate schools because of decreased enrollment. This has also affected the income of those working for these schools. Magnet schools are funded by the RESC, which is allowed to act as a non-profit, collecting donations and state funding. Once again, these schools have seen increasing enrollment, since they cost the families nothing to have their children attend, but decreased funding from the state has resulted in cost-cutting measures in faculty and staff, similar to the public school districts.
Charter schools, however, have the best of all worlds. Their enrollment is going up, similar to the magnet schools, resulting in increased strain on their resources. However, currently, the political climate has allowed for thier state-funding to be increased. The law allows for a payment from the state of $17000 per student. And, with the faculty and staff being non-unionized, the salaries paid by the school are much lower. Add to that the 10% that goes to the CMO (the schools are non-profit, but the CMO can be, and usually is for-profit), and we have an educational model that can allow for CMOs to make almost unlimited money. These CMO investors then can donate to election campaigns, influencing the lawmakers, which allows for more CMO-friendly laws.
It appears that the future of education lies in these publicly-funded but privately-run charter schools. It is to the point that the type of creative education I had as a child will soon be in danger of going extinct. Some charter schools are not run by CMOs, but those that are have their curriculum controlled by both the state and the investors in the CMO. If this doesn’t change, we are in danger of losing our jobs and economic power to Third World nations. We need to allow the charter schools to create their own curriculum, and not be beholden to the standarized tests that are forced upon our children every year. Until this happens, the charter school experiment will fail, but there will be no other schools for our kids to go to. We need CMOs and charter schools that allow kids to learn to love learning.
I hope to, over the next few blogs, to outline my vision for a state-approved charter school which is in charge of its own curriculum. One where students will be allowed to creatively apply their academic learning to an area of their own interest. This school, which I hope to create, is called the ACCESS School (A CATS Charter for Exceptional Student Success), and it will be based on a curriculm that allows the students to become truly “college and career ready."
Well, that’s all for now. Thanks for joining me for another 21st Century Education blog!

The time has come!

Recently, I posted about the hidden anxiety that one of my family members was dealing with, that was slowly tearing us apart at the seams and I feared, one day, would tear our family apart. Since posting it last night, I have calmed down a little, partly because blogging helps to pull my mind off of things that, otherwise would just sit there, letting me perseverate on them and dominating my thoughts. The other reason was that, once I was able to relax a little, I then got some time to think clearly about what was REALLY bothering me. Part of it is that this family member has a problem that they refuse to acknowledge, one that they insist is normal. This is a problem that I cannot fix for them, I cannot help them with, no matter what I do. I cannot make them less anxious, even if I take all of their responsibilities away from them, and this hurts me to see them suffer. The other thing about it that bothers me is that this person avoids doing things that might make them feel insecure/out of control, things like talking on the phone with people they don't know (or even those they DO know, if it might make them realize there might be a problem with them or our family). They avoid anything that might cause discomfort to themself, and they expect others to do these things for them. THIS is what bothers me.
I am a full time teacher at a private school. I regularly have after school responsibilities and activities that I need to do. Yet, our family is regularly in financial duress. You would think that this person might, as an adult in the family, go out and search for a job, even a part time one that they could do during the day, when the kids are in school. It would bring in some needed cash, and possibly even help us through the bad economy, right?
Wrong. This person has it in their head that if they get a job, that we would have to put the kids, who are in school full time, into day care, eating up their salary plus some. To this person, it would actually COST us money for them to get a job. "Well," you might say, "the kids are in school. So day care is not required." Again, they have an answer. "But if they're sick, I'd have to stay home to take care of them, and I'd be fired." OK, that at least makes SOME sense. But WAIT,there's more. When the kids feel sick now, this person's anxiety takes over...
"You HAVE to go to school! You've been out 3 (or 5 or 10...) days already! If you don't go today, they're going to fail you!" And, no matter how often I try to talk to them, this is a very real possibility for them, as anxiety makes even the most unlikely events seem likely.
Or, what REALLY gets to me, if one of the kids feels sick, this person will sometimes say, "You CAN'T stay home! I have to do (such and such) today, " or, " I have people coming over," and "I don't want to cancel again!" This person, who uses the argument that they cannot get a job and help the family out of our financial difficulties, uses as a reason that they need to care for the kids, but when the kids need caring for, they can't be bothered to do it, or it puts them out.
"So, why don't you get a second job?" you might ask. Well, I've tried, but this person insists that would be harmful to the kids since I would not be there at night to help with homework, put them to bed, and just do general work around the house. In a number of other families I know, this is the way they work, one adult works days and the second works nights. That way, there is always one home to care for the kids. But when a second adult in the family cannot or will not work, the first one often needs to step up and pick up the slack. Yet, once again, this person's anxiety gets in the way. They can see that we are having financial problems, yet they cannot get past their anxiety related to working outside of the house, for fear that something might go wrong and one of us might lose our jobs. And they cannot allow ME to get a second job for fear that something might go wrong at night when kids are solely their responsibility. So, we struggle along financially, and they get upset when there is no money for the kids' activities or new clothes or birthday gifts.
THIS is what upsets me the most. This person's anxiety is not only mentally hurting the others in the family, but it is getting in the way of our family's financial security. Their irrational fears, which are caused by the anxiety, causes them to overcompensate, like when they will not get a job or let me get a second job, just in case something happens while I or they are at work. This then causes more problems, which their anxiety blows out of proportion, allowing them to seem bigger than they are. Then, like a snowball rolled down a mountain, these problems continue, getting bigger and bigger, until they cannot be controlled without other parts of our lives being affected.
A while ago I was diagnosed with major depression. I knew something was wrong, so I sought out help. I remember vividly what it was like. I could not function, things seemed to all be going wrong for me, so I pulled into myself and began withdrawing from the world and society. It was easy for me to do, since my Asperger's makes me comfortable with myself. This is what I imagine it is like for this person, just instead of withdrawing, they blow up at the world on a regular basis. However, whether someone withdraws from the world, like in depression, or gets anxiety attacks, or blows up at the injustice they see being done against them by everything and everyone around them, it is still just as debilitating. We need to get through this, and for me, the time has come to step up to the plate and either force them to start pulling their weight, or do it myself, regardless whether they are upset about it or not. Even if it breaks up our family, this person needs to be part of it and accept that one of us has to keep us afloat financially.
Anyway, I feel bad about this, but, as someone once said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one..." If I have to get a second job, and not be there for my kids, then so be it. Wish me luck!

The Future of Education

For those of you who don't know me, I am a STEM teacher who also has Asperger's Syndrome. I like to think that I teach things that will be helpful to kids in their lives after school. However, I don't fool myself that everything I teach will be useful to the kids, or that all the subject matter that I teach will be helpful to them in real life. Take pre-calculus, for example. Most kids, unless they become engineers or something similar, will never use things like that in their lives. I mean, who in their right minds has ever needed to know the standard formula for an ellipse when doing their grocery shopping? This attitude has helped me immensely when teaching. Students see me as a realist and, when they ask me a question like, "What will I use this for?" which is a common question in math classes, I give them an honest answer like, "Nothing, really, but the problem solving skills might just help you one day!"

The other part of my job is as a Learning Specialist. A part of this job, it is my responsibility to assist students with learning how to learn, or, to put it another way, to help students figure out how their brain works, and find out strategies that they can use to help them learn better and figure out the world around them. So, in this job, it is my responsibility to help students work their way through the school curriculum, and become successful academically as we'll as socially. I also see it as part of my job to help introduce new tools and techniques to my fellow teachers that can help them in helping the students to become lifelong learners. Ultimately, I believe that, for every teacher I can help with additional tools to help the struggling learners, the number of people who can be helped becomes exponential.

Which brings me to my topic for the day. As an educator, I need to constantly question myself, "Is what I'm teaching today going to help my students in real life? What is the purpose to teaching them...(Functions, ellipses, Shakespeare, whatever the topic may be)?" If the answer is, "Because I have to," or, "It's in the curriculum," then maybe you should rethink the topic. Everything I teach should be for a reason, one that benefits the students in their lives, not just because someone or something said it was important for them to know.

Today, I was working with a student on a math topic, trying to find a way to get him to really understand a concept. I was finally able to do that with him, and when I asked him about his other classes, I found out that he wasn't doing well reading a work of Shakespeare. In looking at the weekly reports, his English teacher stated that he wasn't retaining anything from the play. So, I talked to him about the play, asking him what he though his problem was. Now, some kids don't think at a high enough level to respond to a question like that, but I've been working with him all year, and I have helped him to see how he thinks and how he learns. He realized that the language was an issue for him and that, "...even with the other words on the next page..." he was spending so much time trying to understand the words (which he couldn't), that he wasn't getting anything else. So we looked online and found a website with a more modern, conversational English translation for him to try. By the end of our time, he said it was much better and that he was able to understand not only the words, but the story as well. WIN for him, right? I thought so, BUT...

I e-mailed to the faculty, thinking that this was too great a resource to pass up. "Maybe it can help other students who are failing (like my student is) retain more of the story and understand it better," I thought. Well, almost immediately after I hit SEND, I got a reply from his English teacher saying that WE English teachers frown on this site since the language is the important part of Shakespeare, and if they need to work through it, then so be it. And, to make matters worse, this teacher responded to the faculty e-mail list, which was like a slap to my face.

So, what IS the point to teaching Shakespeare? Is it the language? Is it the style (tragedy, comedy, etc.)? If it's the language, why not have classes in 9th grade in Shakespearean English? BECAUSE IT'S NOT THE LANGUAGE! In my view, the point to teaching Shakespeare is to learn to appreciate a different type of literature. I feel that we need to reevaluate our curriculum, and those of us who teach because it's part of the curriculum, need to rethink our careers. Our world is changing, and we are, as I once heard in a talk on Learning and the Brain, "We are using an antiquated model to teach our kids for an advanced world. The educational model is closed-book, yet the WORLD is OPEN-book!" Knowledge is no longer the mark of an educated person, it is the problem solvers, the information creators that will be viewed as the educated people of the future. We, as educators, need to help our students get there, and it will not be through the curriculum of our generation.

What I'm Thankful For

Most of the time that I blog, it's because I need to process something that happened to me. My Asperger's and my difficulty interpreting emotions makes writing about things help me work it through my brain so that I can logically figure out what happened and how I should have handled the situation differently, if at all. Today's post is not different, but instead of trying to process what just happened, I am trying to relax my churning, internal emotional state by focusing on the positive things I have in my life.

I am thankful for my kids. They are always so full of love, and have no difficulty sharing that love with others, especially those they see as hurting. There have been times when I have been stressed or down on myself, and my kids seem to be able to sense it. They come to cuddle with me, or tell me jokes, and don't leave me until I know that I am loved.

I am thankful for my wife. She might frustrate the heck out of me at times, but I care for her deeply. My life might be less stressful if she was less emotional about things, but I don't know if we would have clicked like we do. Plus, she is so passionate about everything she does, and she keeps me in touch with the rest of the social world. If it wasn't for her, I would probably be a lonely hermit living in a cave with no friends!

I am thankful for all of my friends. They are there for me when my Asperger's shows up, and are not afraid to tell me what it really looks like. They know I might be upset in the moment, but that I will get over it, and that i will take their advice to heart. My occasional brusqueness and to-the-pointedness never seems to put them off, and they always remain my friends.

I am thankful for my dog, Leo. He is always aware of what I am feeling, and refuses to leave me alone when I am upset or hurting. For example, today while I was putting up the lights on the Christmas tree, it wasn’t going my way. Things kept falling, I almost knocked the tree over, and other things that, like every year, give me the idea that I should just give up on trying and become that hermit with no family or friends. Leo sensed my upset (or maybe he heard me cursing at the tree), and he came over to me to be pet. He refused to leave my side until I had calmed down.

If I focus on what I am thankful for, maybe I can start to see the world in new ways, and it won’t look so bleak and dreary anymore.

The Changing Model of Education

Since the mid-1980s, there has been a cry heard from businessmen, politicians and those who rule the American society that our schools are failing.  People have blamed it on a lot of things, bad teachers, poor curricula, poverty, etc., but whatever its cause, this cry has resulted in one thing.  Students in our schools have become some of the most tested in the world, and this year a new test is being rolled out in dozens of states across the Union.  Whether it is called the PARCC or the SBAC, this test will tell our kids and our families just what they are designed to tell them - that our kids are not getting a decent education and that we need to support new initiatives in education, such as the corporate education movement.

Unfortunately, this is a lie of the worst kind.  Since the 1980s, and especially since No Child Left Behind, our leaders have focused on getting all students up to the same level of proficiency.  Once a child is there, they are no longer cared about.  Creativity, which will be the savior of America, is not promoted in these tests.  Students are told to solve a problem using this method or that, they are being taught non-fiction in Language Arts class.  No longer are the days of reading fiction for enjoyment.  No longer are they days of solving a problem in a unique and new way praised by others.  We have become a nation like those seen in The Hunger Games or Divergent, where everyone needs to fit in and no one can be different.  Those that are become shunned and put out, or, to use a term from Divergent, they become factionless and shunned by all.

Unfortunately, with the movement of more menial jobs out of America, where labor is cheaper since cost of living is cheaper, gone are the days of learning a basic trade that requires conformity with the same standards day in and day out.  Today, as well as in the future, our economy will be based on creative ways of solving problems.  Yet, our schools, due to this culture of incessant testing, has not focused on promoting creativity and different ways of thinking and problem solving, but instead concentrated on getting all students to pass the same test based on the same methods promoted from the same standards.  Our schools, through our politician-dominated boards of education and our politically-minded administrators, have promoted a one-size-fits-all approach to educating out kids.  Shove them all into the same mold and they will all come out the same.  Don't allow them to go beyond the standards, and they will never approach problems creatively.

Maybe we need to rethink our idea of education.  Instead of trying to fit in with the rest of the world and educating our kids like other countries do, maybe, just maybe, we need to teach our kids differently.  Maybe we need to be unique, take away the standardized tests from our kids and let them be creative in their learning.  Maybe every student needs an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), not just those with special needs.  We need to fix education for the better and take the politicians and businessmen out of the educational system.  Until we do, our kids will always be caught in a failing system.