ObamaED - San Diego Focus on Change in Education

Justin Reich on How Free and Open Education Might Widen Digital Divides

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:50:00 +0000

60% of American Schools are cosidered Title-1 (i.e. at least 40% of their students qualify for free lunch because they don't meet Federal poverty level standards).
CK12 - Open access textbooks. What is "Academic Literacy", "Paradata"?There are three learning 'skills' that students can learn from participating in an online wiki:

Expert thinking

New Media Literacy

Complex communicating and collaboration

In this research of 200 public school wiki projects, only 2% used complex communicating and collaborations.

Dr. Michio Kaku Says America Has An Achilles' Heel

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:35:00 +0000

Get rid of the H1 visa, and you will get high paying jobs for Americans, but we will lose our quality of life, because we lack the educational system to compete.The way to fix the American educational system is through cooperation rather than competition.

Listen to Freakonomics about the SCHOOL OF ONE

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:46:00 +0000

With an objective standard of success, teachers only perform at 13%. How should teaching be organized? The most talented teachers can't teach 25 different brains at the same time.

Choose your modality: Dine-in with a Live teacher, Take-out online with home-based learning, or have education Delivered with a private tutor.

What if all students had individual education, from teachers anywhere in the world?

With special software we can monitor the DAILY progress of each student, see trends where learning is getting stuck, and target both the students and the skills to teach the teachers how to teach better.

Listen to the Freakonomics Radio show.

There have been some big changes at School of One since this episode originally aired. Joel Klein, you probably know, left his job as schools chancellor (and landed in a very different universe). And Joel Rose left School of One to start a new non-profit organization that hopes to take the mixed-modality model national. We’ll be sure to update his progress on this blog. It’s quite possible that cities across the country will soon start experimenting with a classroom experience that looks very much like what School of One has been doing in New York.

What did Obama accomplish in Education?

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:36:00 +0000

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Exclusive - Melody Barnes Extended Interview Pt. 1

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

Race to the top, failed. In California our schools have been failing for 40 years. This isn't Obama's fault, but he wanted the job of cleaning up the mess. We need leadership.

The Greatest Show On Earth

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:51:00 +0000

John Oliver reports upon the California Initiative Process on the Daily Show.

Bridgepoint and San Diego: from Voice of San Diego

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 07:59:00 +0000

By Will Carless
By Liam Dillon

original article

Signs of Bridgepoint Education's newfound prominence in San Diego begin as you're flying into the city's downtown Lindbergh Field airport. A few seconds before you land, you'll swoop past its name and logo, displayed in huge white letters at the top of 600 B Street, a downtown high-rise.

Bridgepoint announced its move into that building last spring, the same year the for-profit higher education company put its name on the Holiday Bowl college football game. The same year it began sponsoring the San Diego Symphony's Summer Pops series. The same year it injected itself into San Diego's political consciousness by donating to a campaign and lobbying city leaders for the first time.

Four years ago, Bridgepoint was barely a blip in San Diego. Today, it's made itself impossible to miss. Its operating profits have increased 5,000 percent during that time, to $216 million last year, and it's now the county's fifth-largest private employer. The latest phase of Bridgepoint's extraordinary growth has been putting its indelible stamp on the city it calls home.

"It was just — Boom! They're here," said Steve Cushman, a prominent businessman who worked with the company to secure the naming rights for the Holiday Bowl.

But Bridgepoint is undergoing another recent boom: Controversy.

Criticism of the company centers on its remarkable ability to attract students and remarkable failure to graduate them, all while receiving hundreds of millions in federal student aid dollars. The complaint: Bridgepoint has set up a system to use federal dollars to line investors' pockets rather than enrich students' minds.

Earlier this month, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, held a Senate committee hearing focused exclusively on Bridgepoint, in which he criticized the company for spending considerably more on selling its services than teaching its students. Bridgepoint shouldn't make record profits from federal loan programs, Harkin said, while most of its students were dropping out. The company, whose primary university is located in Harkin's home state, had the highest student withdrawal rates of any for-profit school the senator's committee studied.

"I think this is a scam, an absolute scam," Harkin said at the hearing.

Last month, Iowa's attorney general launched an investigation of the company's business practices and requested three years' worth of Bridgepoint documents to inspect. And, in San Diego, former students and employees of Bridgepoint have accused the company of fraud and violating the state labor code in three class action lawsuits filed since the beginning of the year.

The company argues it's forging new paths in education. By harnessing technology and creating innovative education models, Bridgepoint says on a website it launched after the Senate committee hearing, it's been able to reach vast swathes of the population who might never before have dreamed of getting a college degree.

Bridgepoint has shown no signs of slowing down. But it's also made powerful enemies. As such a strong player in the region's economy, its success or failure in taking on those enemies is likely to resonate throughout the region.

The 'Potemkin University'

Bridgepoint's business model depends on one thing: Getting people into college who wouldn't otherwise go.

That involves paying hundreds of recruiters in San Diego office buildings to call around the country and find tens of thousands of people willing to enroll in a tiny college in rural Iowa. Ninety-nine percent of those students won't ever have to set foot in Iowa, since they'll be studying online.

And the bulk of the revenue Bridgepoint receives for educating students — at least 85 percent last year — comes straight from the federal government in the form of student loans.

Bridgepoint CEO Andrew Clark and other company officials declined interview requests through corporate spokespeople. But, as a publicly traded company, Bridgepoint's financial success story has been well-documented.

More than anything else, two factors have played into Bridgepoint's extraordinary success. One was the company's genius business idea; the other was a stroke of good fortune.

The idea? Instead of starting a university from scratch, the company bought one.

In the mid-2000s, Clark, a former executive at for-profit college giant University of Phoenix, spent eight months searching for small liberal arts colleges for sale. He eventually settled on a Catholic university in rural Iowa: The Franciscan University of the Prairies, formerly run by an order of nuns. With backing from a New York private equity firm, Clark's newly minted company bought the college in 2005.

This allowed Bridgepoint to simplify the accreditation process that's vital to a university's legitimacy. Accreditation opens the gates to a college's eligibility for federal financial aid and makes it easier for students to transfer credits to other schools. The company was able to retain the accreditation of the university it bought, rather than undergo the more lengthy, expensive and rigorous process of accrediting a brand-new school.

Buying a school also allowed Bridgepoint to market a college with a ready-made history, campus and tradition to an online audience. It helped that the school, which Bridgepoint rebranded "Ashford University," had been around for almost 100 years and had an idyllic leafy campus, replete with red-brick buildings.

The stroke of good fortune? In 2006, a year after Bridgepoint bought the Iowa college, Congress began allowing schools that educate more than 50 percent of their students online to receive federal loans.

That decision played perfectly into Bridgepoint's business model and Ashford became the physical anchor to an online empire. In 2007, the company bought a second accredited college, in Colorado, which it rebranded the University of the Rockies, allowing it to offer even more courses online.

Bridgepoint's enrollment soared 517 percent between 2007 and 2010. As of December, 77,892 students were enrolled at one of Bridgepoint's two schools, but only 859 of them studied on-campus. The company now offers more than 1,345 courses in 71 bachelor's and post-graduate degree programs, and students can study anything from accounting to journalism to social science.

The disparity of tens of thousands of students enrolling at a small college in Iowa whose campus they'll likely never see prompted the Huffington Post to dub Ashford, the "Potemkin University."

While its enrollment swelled online, Bridgepoint made its corporate presence felt in San Diego.

'They Don't Have to Be in San Diego'

Two years ago, despite his company's success, Clark had a major concern.

"Nobody knows us," he told Julie Meier Wright, a local business leader. He wanted that to change.

Clark asked Meier Wright's business advocacy organization, the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp., to study Bridgepoint's impact on San Diego's economy, she said.

The resulting study concluded that Bridgepoint added, directly or indirectly, more than $500 million to the local economy. Since that report was written, the company has grown even bigger.

The study kicked off Bridgepoint's plans to expand its presence in its hometown.

During the next few months in 2010, the company put its name on two major local events: The Holiday Bowl and the San Diego Symphony Summer Pops series. It also handed out thousands of dollars to other causes, including the San Diego County Office of Education and local educational scholarships. (Full disclosure: The company also sponsors San Diego Explained, a joint venture between voiceofsandiego.org and NBC San Diego.)

And Bridgepoint began making campaign contributions, starting a political action committee and giving more than $100,000 to local and state elections over the next few months. Its donations included $25,900 to Republican Meg Whitman's failed gubernatorial bid and $16,000 to the successful campaign to make the city of San Diego's "strong mayor" form of government permanent.

Last summer, Bridgepoint expanded its lobbying efforts to local matters. The company hired San Diego lobbyists to speak with city leaders about potential negative effects on its downtown offices from putting a permanent homeless shelter at the nearby World Trade Center building. The City Council approved the shelter earlier this month.

Clark and other Bridgepoint executives now sit on the boards of many of the region's business advocacy groups, including the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Corp., the Downtown San Diego Partnership and the San Diego County Taxpayers Association.

Local business leaders were effusive in their acclaim of Bridgepoint, praising Clark and the company not only for its financial success, but also for giving back to San Diego. Ruben Barrales, the Chamber of Commerce's CEO, called the 45-year-old Clark, "one of the exciting young business leaders in San Diego."

"They don't have to be in San Diego," Barrales said. "They don't have to be involved in the community. They don't have to give the amount of money in philanthropy that they do. But they have."

Under Fire from Washington, Iowa and San Diego

While Bridgepoint has been winning fans in the local business community, it's faced some severe criticism from government overseers in Washington D.C. and Iowa.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin zeroed in on Bridgepoint two weeks ago in the latest in a series of hearings he has been holding about the for-profit education business. In a lengthy denunciation of the company, Harkin lambasted Bridgepoint for duplicity in its marketing, lavish executive compensation and dismal dropout rates.

The senator pointed out that while Bridgepoint was making record profits last year, 84 percent of the students in its two-year programs were dropping out, according to a sampling of students by his committee.

"In the world of for-profit higher education, spectacular business success is possible despite an equally spectacular record of student failure," Harkin said.

Since the hearing, Harkin has announced that he plans to introduce legislation to tighten the regulation of the for-profit education industry.

Clark declined an invitation to attend the hearing, but the company's new website devotes a lengthy section to responding to Harkin's concerns.

Bridgepoint says its education model serves the needs of "diverse, non-traditional students." Drop-out rates are likely to be higher because Bridgepoint offers education to older students, many of whom work full-time and aren't supported by their parents, the website states.

The Senate committee hearing was just the latest in a series of high-profile dressings-down for Bridgepoint.

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Inspector General concluded the company paid recruiting staff based on the number of students they signed up for courses, something prohibited under federal law.

Last month, the company disclosed that Iowa's attorney general had launched its own investigation into Ashford University's business practices. It's not clear yet what the inquiry concerns, but the attorney general's asked to inspect three years' worth of company documents.

There are also potential problems in San Diego.

Since Jan. 1, three local law firms have launched class action lawsuits against Bridgepoint.

Bridgepoint students claim in two of those lawsuits that the company lied to them about how much their programs would cost and overcharged the federal government for their education. In the third lawsuit, Bridgepoint employees argued that the company denied them pay for required meal breaks and overtime.

Bridgepoint's Fate and San Diego's Future

Bridgepoint chose San Diego.

Exactly why isn't clear, since the company's not talking. But whatever its reasoning, that decision has brought hundreds of millions of dollars into the region and put money into the pockets of local people and local causes at a time when San Diego's reeling from a real estate meltdown and financial crisis.

Bridgepoint's success has been at least partly due to decisions made by politicians and regulators. And politicians and regulators are now bringing the company into their crosshairs.

Any negative legislation or tightened rules that may result from that scrutiny could, in the future, prove to be a headache for the company, just as friendly regulations were a boon in the past. And it's a sign of how woven the company has become into San Diego's economic fabric that any negative fallout could ripple out into the regional economy.

The company is heavily invested in the local commercial real estate market. It's responsible for employing more people than San Diego mainstays like General Dynamics and SAIC and has promised to continue sponsoring events like the Holiday Bowl for at least the next two years. Bridgepoint's also made clear that it's willing to spend on local political races.

Trouble at the company, said Gary London, the local analyst who studied Bridgepoint's impact in 2009, could become an "economic tsunami in our city."

"They've grown so fast, having to retract so fast will have the converse effect," he said.

Will Carless and Liam Dillon appreciated the opportunity to work together on this story. You can contact us at will.carless@voiceofsandiego.org orliam.dillon@voiceofsandiego.org or call us at the office at 619.325.0525

Creativity: do you stigmatize mistakes?

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:58:00 +0000

Richard Baraniuk: Goodbye, textbooks; hello, open-source learning

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:13:00 +0000

What we need to do is cooperate
Open source learning

Tim Harford: Trial, error and the God complex | Video on TED.com

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:01:00 +0000

Tim Harford: Trial, error and the God complex | Video on TED.com

Learn To Be .ORG

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:05:00 +0000

MISSION: To provide free online tutoring and academic resources to underserved communities.

The Learn To Be Foundation is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that operates solely on donations from individuals, businesses, and foundations. It was organized exclusively for educational purposes on the principle of using the World Wide Web as a medium for people of all ages to grasp their educational potential. The Foundation’s hope is to foster and cultivate free online tutoring services that are driven by a community of users dedicated to teaching and mentoring those in need.

The backbone of the Foundation’s website includes tutoring sessions that occur online with the tutor and the student communicating via audio and a virtual whiteboard to create a seamless transition from one-on-one in-person tutoring to one-on-one online tutoring. Today, there are over one hundred Learn To Be Certified Tutors helping students across the country.

Learn To Be works with schools and organizations to provide tutoring to students in Grades K-8 in the following subjects:

Math
Science
Language Arts

The Foundation also operates student organizations at universities and colleges to further its mission of providing free online tutoring and academic resources to underserved communities. The primary goal of these student organizations is to recruit and foster a college student-based tutor community and to explore and establish partnerships with underserved schools and organizations in the surrounding campus community.

Please let us know if you have any suggestions or ideas that would help make Learn To Be more useful. Together, we can teach students around the world to Learn To Be...whatever they dream to be!

San Diego Unified doesn't know how to judge what makes a quality school

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Wed, 25 May 2011 20:16:00 +0000

My favorite education reporter, Emily Alpert, from Voice of San Diego, is consistently uncovering the problems with SDUSD, but the solutions are rare. In this week's story she finds that our schools, which have run out of money for busing, must now strive to make all schools equally good, but they have no idea what factors make a quality school. There is some push back from the unions about which teachers go to what schools.

San Diego Unified has come up with a dozen different indicators of what makes a "quality school." Those indicators range from parent engagement to setting clear expectations for students. A lot of the work stems from "It's Being Done," a book by journalist Karin Chenoweth that looks at schools with high poverty and high achievement.

A dozen factors that indicate quality schools:

Quality Teaching and data driven instruction
Quality leadership
Professional learning for all staff
Access to broad and challenging curriculum
High Expectations
K-12 Integration and collaboration
Supportive environment, safe and well maintained facilities
Quality support staff integrated and focused on student achievement
Parents engagement around student achievement, community volunteers
Accepting of all children regardless of circumstance, need or background
Tools for learning, technology
Serves as neighborhood center with services depending on neighborhood needs

(Use the links above to access the reports)

In my opinion, the best teachers need to be assigned to the lowest performing schools. But we don't have any objective way to assess teacher quality, because test scores are not allowed to factor as part of teacher performance review. My solution, randomly rotate all teachers every other year, so that all students get access to the best (and worst) teachers over their 12 years in school.

Education is Key - RSA

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Mon, 16 May 2011 10:48:00 +0000

Check out this short video from the United Kingdom, RSA from Cognitive Media.

Global Classroom

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:12:00 +0000

I don't do this often, but this is a special case. When someone states the obvious truth, it cuts across all lines, and I must post it everywhere.

"If Issac Newton had done calculus videos on YouTube, I wouldn't have to. (assuming he was any good) - Salman Khan"

Why do good students fail in our public schools?

FLIP THE CLASSROOM!

Traditional Classroom Model penalizes you for experimentation and failure, "DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS?". Kids COMPETE with each other, but does not expect mastery.

Assign the lectures as homework, and do the homework in the classroom.

Pause, work at your own pace. Stay on that bicycle, experiment, failure is OK. Reward success, don't penalize failure. Allow students to COOPERATE, and you will see that your 'slow' students are just as smart as the 'gifted' kids.

But expect mastery.

Watch this video twice.

Build a Global, One World Classroom.

Dyslexia? No, Eleanor has lost her focus...literally

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 13:26:00 +0000

This is why you shouldn't give up on kids. For months on end, Emma and James Farquharson would approach the weekends with dread.

While most families look forward to the break, the Farquharsons knew they were heading for a by now familiar storm as their daughter Eleanor, then nine, would refuse to do her homework.

It did not matter what negotiations took place, or the lengths her parents went to, the outcome was always the same - uncharacteristic tears and tantrums, a very upset child and an absolute refusal to cooperate.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1345134/Dyslexia-No-Eleanor-lost-focus--literally.html#ixzz1AXlT3UMh

Brain Education

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:22:00 +0000

You've surely heard the slogans:

"Our educational games will give your brain a workout!" Or how about, "Give your students the cognitive muscles they need to build brain fitness." And then there's the program that "builds, enhances, and restores natural neural pathways to assist natural learning."

No one doubts that the brain is central to education, so the myriad products out there claiming to be based on research in neuroscience can look tempting.

With the great popularity of so-called brain-based learning, however, comes great risk. "So much of what is published and said is useless," says Kurt Fischer, founding president of the International Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) Society and director of the MBE graduate program at Harvard University. "Much of it is wrong, a lot is empty or vapid, and some is not based in neuroscience at all."

Still, there are some powerful insights emerging from brain science that speak directly to how we teach in the classroom: learning experiences do help the brain grow, emotional safety does influence learning, and making lessons relevant can help information stick. The trick is separating the meat from the marketing.

So what's an educator to make of all these claims? Check our Edutopia to expose the Myths and the reality.

Parents and Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Phil) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

A prosecutor in Detroit recently proposed locking up parents who skipped conferences with teachers. Research overwhelmingly shows that parental involvement in a child's education improves academic performance. But there are a lot of reasons why parents keep their distance — including cultural and class divisions. Guest host Jennifer Ludden speaks to Wayne County, Michigan prosecutor Kym Worthy about her proposal to punish parents, and National PTA president Chuck Saylors talks about what parents and teachers can do to work together more effectively. Also, Tracy McDaniel, who founded a KIPP school in Oklahoma, will share that program's radical approach to get parents more involved in their kids' schooling.

When I was in high-school, in Texas, I was depressed, often overslept, and failed to get to my first-period class several times per month. In Texas, the school roll was taken in 1st period, and in missing that class, I was costing the school $3500/semester.

They dragged my parents in for conferences, and threatened them with legal action, if I didn't go to school, my parents would be criminally charged and, after an expensive legal battle, potentially convicted.

Eventually, I was forced to go to 'alternative school' a kind of 'Juvenile Hall' for delinquents and truants. We were to sit behind glass eight hours per day, in isolation booths, and do our school work. I think it was the only time in three years that I was actually ahead on my class work.

As soon as I got out of that place, I dropped out of school. Disgusted with a school system that didn't respect the student, and didn't ask for our participation, and instead threatened us and our parents with jail, to extort our cooperation. I choose to leave rather than suffer. I'm an anomaly, at seventeen I was more competent than the school administrators, and smarter than my teachers and parents. That high-school was a toxic place for anyone with an independent mind and the intellect to question authority. They failed to 'educate' me, but I still achieved my education, the problem is that I never got the credit for what I achieved, and they never got the blame.

When we seek to teach, the first step must be a willing student. Schools exist, not for the school administrators to make quarter-million dollar salarys, but for the students. When we fail to acknowledge that underlying premise of education, we fail to teach.

Parents and Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Phil) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:58:00 +0000

A prosecutor in Detroit recently proposed locking up parents who skipped conferences with teachers. Research overwhelmingly shows that parental involvement in a child's education improves academic performance. But there are a lot of reasons why parents keep their distance — including cultural and class divisions. Guest host Jennifer Ludden speaks to Wayne County, Michigan prosecutor Kym Worthy about her proposal to punish parents, and National PTA president Chuck Saylors talks about what parents and teachers can do to work together more effectively. Also, Tracy McDaniel, who founded a KIPP school in Oklahoma, will share that program's radical approach to get parents more involved in their kids' schooling.

When I was in high-school, in Texas, I was depressed, often overslept, and failed to get to my first-period class several times per month. In Texas, the school roll was taken in 1st period, and in missing that class, I was costing the school $3500/semester.

They dragged my parents in for conferences, and threatened them with legal action, if I didn't go to school, my parents would be criminally charged and, after an expensive legal battle, potentially convicted.

Eventually, I was forced to go to 'alternative school' a kind of 'Juvenile Hall' for delinquents and truants. We were to sit behind glass eight hours per day, in isolation booths, and do our school work. I think it was the only time in three years that I was actually ahead on my class work.

As soon as I got out of that place, I dropped out of school. Disgusted with a school system that didn't respect the student, and didn't ask for our participation, and instead threatened us and our parents with jail, to extort our cooperation. I choose to leave rather than suffer. I'm an anomaly, at seventeen I was more competent than the school administrators, and smarter than my teachers and parents. That high-school was a toxic place for anyone with an independent mind and the intellect to question authority. They failed to 'educate' me, but I still achieved my education, the problem is that I never got the credit for what I achieved, and they never got the blame.

When we seek to teach, the first step must be a willing student. Schools exists, not for the school administrators to make quarter-million dollar salarys, but for the students. When we fail to acknowledge that underlying premise of education, we fail to teach.

Parents and Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Phil) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:51:00 +0000

A prosecutor in Detroit recently proposed locking up parents who skipped conferences with teachers. Research overwhelmingly shows that parental involvement in a child's education improves academic performance. But there are a lot of reasons why parents keep their distance — including cultural and class divisions. Guest host Jennifer Ludden speaks to Wayne County, Michigan prosecutor Kym Worthy about her proposal to punish parents, and National PTA president Chuck Saylors talks about what parents and teachers can do to work together more effectively. Also, Tracy McDaniel, who founded a KIPP school in Oklahoma, will share that program's radical approach to get parents more involved in their kids' schooling.

When I was in high-school, in Texas, I was depressed, often overslept, and failed to get to my first-period class several times per month. In Texas, the school roll was taken in 1st period, and in missing that class, I was costing the school $3500/semester.

They dragged my parents in for conferences, and threatened them with legal action, if I didn't go to school, my parents would be criminally charged and, after an expensive legal battle, potentially convicted.

Eventually, I was force to go to 'alternative school' a kind of 'Juvenile Hall' for delinquents and truants. We were forced to sit behind glass eight hours per day, in isolation booths, and do our school work. I think it was the only time in 3 years that I was actually ahead on my class work.

As soon as I got out of that place, I dropped out of school. Disgusted with a school system that didn't respect the student, and didn't ask for their buy-in, and failed to teach, I choose to leave rather than suffer. I was more competent than the school administrators, and smarter than my teachers and parents. That high-school was a toxic place for anyone with an independent mind and the intellect to question authority. They failed to 'educate' me, but I still achieved my education, the problem is that I never got the credit for what I achieved, and they never got the blame.

When we seek to teach, the first step must be a willing student. School exists, not for the school administrator to make his quarter-million dollar salary, but for the student. When we fail to acknowledge that underlying premise of education, we fail to teach.

Teach, with Tony Danza

noreply@blogger.com (Phil) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 23:08:00 +0000

Here is a great new reality TV show about our Public Education System.

I want to see Edison Elementary School in San Diego

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 18:43:00 +0000

Edison teachers embrace examining scores as a way to figure out what works and what doesn't.

Principal Bustani even videotapes classes with especially good results to show other teachers how they taught a lesson. This gentler take on data seems to be working. Scores at Edison have soared.

"They hold themselves accountable. They'll say, 'Wow, your kids did so well on this — what did you do?'" Bustani said. She rarely steps in. "I don't think it's helpful to say, 'Your class scored low.'"

Every class-room should be video-recorded and all parents and educators should have access to the live-video-feed. Student's wouldn't be disruptive or cheat (as much) because they would be caught. Teachers would be supervised by parents in the public. Administrators could be held accountable for failing to train and educate their teachers. It's an easy, cheap, technology fix. Students could even watch lessons over again to re-enforce learning.

American Idiot: Lewis Black

noreply@blogger.com (Phil) — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 21:48:00 +0000

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Back in Black - Education Crisis

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Rally to Restore Sanity

The Khan Academy

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:20:00 +0000

The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) with the mission of providing a world-class education to anyone, anywhere.

"Working from the comfort of his home, Salman Khan has made available more than 1,800 mini-lectures to educate the world. Subjects range from math and physics to finance, biology, and current economics. Kahn Academy amounts to little more than a YouTube channel and one very devoted man. He is trying to provide education in the way he wished he had been taught. With more than 100,000 video views a day, the man is making a difference for many students. In his FAQ he explains how he knows he is being effective. What will probably ensure his popularity (and provide a legacy surpassing that of most highly paid educators) is that everything is licensed under Creative Commons 3.0. He only needs his time, a $200 Camtasia Recorder, an $80 Wacom Bamboo Tablet, and a free copy of SmoothDraw3. While the lecturing may not be quite up to the Feynman level, it's a great augmenter for advanced learners, and a lifeline for those without much access to learning resources."

Watch more videos about Khan Academy.

Dean Kamen's US FIRST foundation

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:18:00 +0000

Dean Kamen is an inventor, entrepreneur, and tireless advocate for science and technology. His passion and determination to help young people discover the excitement and rewards of science and technology are the cornerstones of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology).

FIRST was founded in 1989 to inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology. Based in Manchester, NH, the 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit public charity designs accessible, innovative programs that motivate young people to pursue education and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math, while building self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills.

Vision

"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders." - Dean Kamen, Founder

Mission

Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

FIRST Values

Gracious ProfessionalismTM

Dr. Woodie Flowers, FIRST National Advisor and Pappalardo Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, coined the term "Gracious ProfessionalismTM."

Gracious Professionalism is part of the ethos of FIRST. It's a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community.

With Gracious Professionalism, fierce competition and mutual gain are not separate notions. Gracious professionals learn and compete like crazy, but treat one another with respect and kindness in the process. They avoid treating anyone like losers. No chest thumping tough talk, but no sticky-sweet platitudes either. Knowledge, competition, and empathy are comfortably blended.

In the long run, Gracious Professionalism is part of pursuing a meaningful life. One can add to society and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing one has acted with integrity and sensitivity.

CoopertitionTM

CoopertitionTM produces innovation. At FIRST, Coopertition is displaying unqualified kindness and respect in the face of fierce competition. Coopertition is founded on the concept and a philosophy that teams can and should help and cooperate with each other even as they compete.

Coopertition involves learning from teammates. It is teaching teammates. It is learning from mentors. And it is managing and being managed. Coopertition means competing always, but assisting and enabling others when you can.

Next Einstein Initiative

noreply@blogger.com (Philosopher3000) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:16:00 +0000

Why is it that America doesn't have a Next Einstein Initiative? - As a boy, I was considered a bit of a math prodigy, they gave me all these logical reasoning tests and put me in special schools. As I finished my formal education, I returned to the concept of "intelligence quotient" and tried to reason out why there were not more people like me, good at math?

I found that the mathematical talents of the brain must be carefully cultivated in youth or else like an unattended garden they will become overgrown with unweeded thoughts, atrophy, and fade. In addition, there is no known gene for Math Genius, there is a spectrum of various math skills, and some savants are born, but in general, the math ability is produced at random among the 8,388,608 possible offspring any two human beings can produce. In short, there is no way to predict who will be the next Einstein.

So, it makes sense to test and cultivate all children, in the hope of discovering unique abilities, and then encouraging them. But in the USA we have failing public schools, and we have horrible math literacy. In our misguided battles over Teacher Union Pensions and Prayer in Schools, we are failing to protect and nurture our garden. That's just brilliant.

SDUSD faces another $147-million in Cuts for 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Phil) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 16:05:00 +0000

This is all the result of allowing corporations to steal tax revenue to line their pockets.
http://www.closetheloophole.com/