Waiting for Superman? We need about 4 MILLION Supermen and Superwomen

The recent documentary, “Waiting For Superman,” paints a discouraging view of our school system and our ability to give students what they need. Get your child into a first rate school -- private or public -- with great teachers, sufficient resources, and a supportive environment at home and school and you have it made. If not, don't expect much.

To the defense of schools, James Gurthrie opined in 'Waiting for Superman' to reform education? He's already here. that superman has already arrived. He argues that we have a better sense of what works now, lots of public pressure and understand that we must make hard choices in the face of dwindling school resources.

But it ultimately comes down to resources and scalable and replicable models. Revered KIPP founders Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin wrote in the Christian Science Monitor that "the actual proves the possible." It's true that when the "four minute mile" was achieved, it opened the way for other to do the same. But as much as I can see and admire what LeBron James can do, there aren't many people who can do the same.

But KIPP plays with a stacked deck. Students can't attend KIPP unless they agree to do their homework every night, attend school for an extended daily schedule, go to Saturday and summer classes, and not disrupt class. In short, KIPP students have parents who want them to do well in school, will drive them to succeed -- literally and figuratively motivating, punishing and rewarding them as well as making sure they physically get to school on time.

But this reminds me of statistics class in business school the night the professor talked about wanting to see how fast cats run. He said he could catch a bunch of cats and time them running a certain distance. The only problem is he said he would likely only catch slow cats! KIPP has "fast cats."

And if you ignore for a moment that KIPP attracts and admits only SuperKids with SuperParents and employs only SuperTeachers and SuperAdministrators, KIPP gets a lot of financial support not available to most schools.

I volunteered for a sweeping reform program in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in the 90's called Project LEARN. It was based on site based management, shared decision-making and teacher, parent and student support. To participate in the program you needed 80 percent of all stakeholders at a school to support the program. The first year around 30 schools had the votes and participated. The next year over 100 schools participated. But as the program moved along year by year, the number of schools left over with sufficient teachers, parents and students willing to put in the hard work dried up. It wasn't a sustainable program. Not enough Supermen and Superwomen (or SuperKids).

I created an automated diagnostic and prescriptive assessment, student management and instructional delivery system 15 years ago. It helps teachers at all levels in their professional development become better. An approach like that coupled with national standards and hared proven practices would help.

But teachers need to be fresh, energetic, positive, encouraging and they must believe students can learn. Administrators must create an environment that is conducive for learning -- safe, forward thinking, respectful and supportive. Parents and community members have to do their part.

So is SuperMan coming? I hope he comes with 4 million colleagues who care, share, dare, repair, and fare well!

Yes - creation of national learning standards and assessments. keeps great teachers from sharing ideas, inhibits innovation, and prevents meaningful comparison of student, teacher, and school performance. Rather than there being 50 different standards, Obama could unify the country around a common vision for the kind of teaching and learning our children need.

Fourth, we should assess teachers on their demonstrated impact on student learning, not whether they hold traditional teacher certifications. BUT you can't control things outside the classroom

Kipp doesn't appear to scale.  Is that how you see it?

 Gregory Korte, USA TODAY6:29 a.m. EST December 11, 2015

Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

WASHINGTON — President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act into law Thursday, largely replacing the No Child Left Behind Act that was a hallmark of his predecessor's domestic agenda.

Lawmakers have touted the new law as a more flexible approach to student testing and school accountability, once again making states responsible for fixing under-performing schools.

Here's what's changed in the two laws:

The Problem

No Child Left Behind:

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon Johnson, was a civil rights law that provided education funding to states and attempted to ensure that every student had access to an education. The law would expire every three to five years, requiring Congress to reauthorize it. In 2001, Democrats and Republicans in Congress became increasingly concerned by the growing achievement gaps that left poor and minority students in failing schools, and devised a system of testing and accountability to fix it. "The fundamental principle of this bill is that every child can learn, we expect every child to learn, and you must show us whether or not every child is learning," President George W. Bush said in the Jan. 8, 2002, signing ceremony.

Every Student Succeeds Act: The new law tries to preserve the spirit of No Child Left Behind, while fixing what were widely perceived as its one-size-fits-all approach."The goals of No Child Left Behind, the predecessor of this law, were the right ones: High standards. Accountability. Closing the achievement gap," Obama said Thursday. "But in practice, it often fell short. It didn't always consider the specific needs of each community. It led to too much testing during classroom time. It often forced schools and school districts into cookie-cutter reforms that didn't always produce the kinds of results that we wanted to see."

Testing

No Child Left Behind: The law required states to test students on math and English every year in the third through eighth grades, and then again once in high school. It also required at least one science test in elementary, middle and high school.

Every Student Succeeds Act: States must still test students in the same grades but will now have flexibility in how and when they administer those tests. For example, a single annual assessment can be broken down into a series of smaller tests. There's also an emphasis on finding different kinds of tests that more accurately measure what students are learning.

Common Core

No Child Left Behind: The 2002 law did not address the Common Core standards specifically, since they didn't emerge until later that decade. And they emerged not from the federal government, but from a state-led effort to define what the states should be teaching and how it should be taught. But the Obama administration did play a role in expanding Common Core through waivers to No Child Left Behind requirements that encouraged states to adopt the standards.

Every Student Succeeds Act: The new law allows states to adopt Common Core but does not require it. In fact, it requires the Education Department to remain neutral: "The Secretary shall not attempt to influence, incentivize, or coerce State adoption of the Common Core State Standards developed under the Common Core State Standards Initiative or any other academic standards common to a significant number of States, or assessments tied to such standard."

Accountability

No Child Left Behind: One of the fundamental principles of the 2002 law — indeed, the principle that gave the law its name — was that schools had to improve the performance of all students. To do that, it required school districts to break out test scores and other measures for minority subgroups to make sure they were making progress each year. In practice, many states found that goal to be unrealistic and got around them by either creating "super subgroups" that lumped all disadvantaged students together, or changing to more subjective measures like parent/teacher involvement.

Every Student Succeeds Act: The new law leaves accountability goals almost entirely up to the states. States must submit their accountability plans to theDepartment of Education, which still has a limited oversight role. And there are "guardrails" defining broadly what the accountability goals need to include, and test scores and graduation rates must be given "much greater weight" than the more subjective measures.

Remedies

No Child Left Behind: States that wanted their fair share of federal funding were required to fix schools that failed to improve test scores adequately. Those "interventions" started out with softer measures, but after five years the school had a limited number of dire choices: fire the principal and most of the staff, convert to a charter school, lengthen the school day or year, or close down the school entirely.

Every Student Succeeds Act: The new law is much more specific about which schools need intervention but much less specific on what those interventions should be. Schools at the bottom 5% of assessment scores (as defined by the state), high schools that graduate less than 67% of students, or schools where subgroups are consistently underperforming would be considered failing and could be subject to state takeover — although the law doesn't say what the state needs to do.

Spending

No Child Left Behind: The education law sets policy, and does not spend money directly — that's done through annual spending bills. The original law authorized up to $32 billion in spending in 2002 dollars, but Congress never spent anywhere close to that, appropriating just $23 billion in 2015.

Every Student Succeeds Act: The law authorizes the spending of $24.9 billion in 2016, again subject to the spending bill now being finalized by Congress. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that cost would grow to $25.8 billion in 2020.

Bipartisanship

No Child Left Behind: The architects of the 2002 law were on opposite sides of theCapitol and on opposite ends of the political spectrum: Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio (later the House speaker), and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. The vote on final passage was 381-41 in the House and 87-10 in the Senate. Bush signed the bill into law at a high school in Boehner's congressional district.

Every Student Succeeds Act: The lead sponsors in the Senate were Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash, and in the House were Reps. John Kline, R-Minn., and Bobby Scott, D-Va. It passed the House 359-64 and the Senate 85-12. Obama signed it into law Thursday at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Finally - Game-based learning that's really fun and effective

One of ISTE's most popular articles of 2015

Like many educators, I've long been searching for game-based learning that's both FUN for students and EFFECTIVE for teachers.  I'm pleased that this piece I co-wrote with James Pike was one of ISTE's ten most popular articles of 2015.  Using Minecraft with James' MathcraftPLC.com lesson plans and support network, teachers now have an engaging way to teach COMMON CORE MATH STANDARDS that kids really love.  Teachers are seeing seeing spectacular  results. https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=558&category=In-the-classroom&article=

Students play video games for hours. They "play" with Mathcraft with the same vigor -- and learn math concepts too. 3rd graders learning Algebra? Check it out!

John Stuppy Ph.D.

CEO, EDUMETRIX

Part 2:  Some pilots can get you where you want to go – with the right navigation

In Part 1: "Why Education Pilots Don't Usually Get Off The ground," I shared a common lament – that most pilots don't often work out like you would hope. Whether it’s to secure future sales, funding from a VC, or other purpose, free pilots don’ often benefit your business as much as paid trials.

By “pilot” I’m referring to programs where you supply your product for free in the hopes you'll sell the product when the pilot is over. Or maybe you are hoping to get funding from VC's because you've signed up several -- even high profile -- free pilots.

While paid programs are better than free ones by a wide margin. the tips below on how to run a more successful pilot also produce better results for paid, normal product implementations.

Keep these things in mind when running pilots or paid implementations.

          1. A funded pilot can produce tremendous profitability and credibility. These are generally NOT free pilots. We have helped clients find PAID programs where you can leverage positive measurable results in one state, district or schools into expanded / additional programs and sales opportunities paid for by legislation and earmarks.

          2. Unless you have solid program evaluation and statistical bench-strength in your company, You should engage a researcher to set up the study, do an appropriate research design, collect the right data and analyze results. You can engage a professor at a school of education), a degreed (Ph.D.) consultant or other resource who can make sure the study is reasonable in terms of gains, measurement, time to see results, training materials, proper controls, etc.

          3. You should have BOLD and meaningful goals in mind. Teachers won't give a pilot the proper time and attention if there isn't a solid, impactful answer to the question "What's in it for me?"

          4. Have a clear, well thought out sense of what you believe the pilot will demonstrate including how that will be measured. Does your assessment directly measure what you are hoping to change? You should probably collect several types of data. For example, consider using student and teacher surveys to show ease of use, enjoyment and other things that can be measured quickly. Your evaluation should produce actionable feedback and show positive short-term goals and benefits. This can be encouraging to those who are implementing or promoting the pilot or trial.

          5. Have a reasonable idea in mind of how long (number of months, time used per day, etc.) it will take for your pilot to produce benefits. If it takes 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week and a teacher only uses it 3 times a week then you won't expect to show the benefits you would expect. What results can you show in the time you're given?

          6. Make sure you monitor the usage of the product and ensure everything is done "by the book" so you don't end up with lackluster results because the product has not been used properly. Sit in on classes where teachers are piloting your product. Do instructional supervision. Make sure they are using the product correctly and note rough areas that should be improved. Be sure to continuously monitor and improve, ask teachers for their feedback and improve your product throughout the pilot.

          7. It's best if you have a technology component that ensures best practices are followed, the right data is easily tracked and reporting is up-to-date and insightful. In some cases it's alright to give users some "constrained flexibility" -- letting them not follow product recommendations in some areas -- but evaluating whether a teacher's changes to what's normally prescribed producers better or poorer results.

Have you run pilots that produced long-term financial windfalls? What other steps or tips did you use?

John Stuppy
CEO, EDUMETRIX
www.edumetrix.com 
john@edumetrix.com
410-935-0936

P.S. Are you looking for proven strategies to grow your education technology, products or services business? 

Use this link to schedule a phone call to discuss your goals and needs. http://meetme.so/JohnStuppy 

Let’s see what EDUMETRIX can do to help your business get funding, grow, dominate your market and/or sell for maximum value.

Why Education Pilots Don't Usually Get Off The Ground

Part 1: Education Pilots Don't Usually "Get you there"

I speak with a lot of education technology, products and services vendors who say they are going to do a pilot (free or low-cost trial) in one or more schools. They tell me they will place the product in the school, the kids will use it and the school promises that if it works, they will buy it on a large scale.

The vendors are usually excited by this supposed "win" and have visions of orders pouring in as a result. Those vendors looking to raise money or sell out are sure that pilots will be a valuable proving ground and investors and acquirers being impressed the vendor has teachers, principals, etc. willing and motivated to try it out.

 But then they are surprised when I tell them that the pilot won't prove what it's supposed to, they will get mixed results -- if they get any results at all, investors will yawn and not assign any value (or valuation) to the pilot programs, and they will waste their time, money and other resources. Pilots don't usually work the way they are supposed to.

Free pilots are most often a waste

My experience shows that pilots/trials are a bad idea for many reasons:

          (1) If a school or district isn't paying for it or paying very little,, they aren't likely to use the product as religiously or put in the effort required to get a new project off the ground

          (2) If you are hoping to get investors excited, free or reduced price pilots don't convince investors that there's a market (E.g. that people want the product enough to pay for it)

          (3) Pilots are typically run either at some start date or for a duration that might not give you enough time to collect data and show gains or other "proof of life"

          (4) Even if the pilot runs the whole school year you are waiting a long time to run the program, collect and analyze data and determine effectiveness. Do you really have a year to wait to demonstrate the product works and will work for others who the vendor is convinced will be "lining up" to buy once they see the pilot is successful? And when does this opportunity to move from pilot to paid happen in the budgeting and buying cycle? Probably not when they are allocating money to these products.

          (5) There are a lot of things that go into product success. The teachers have to use the product correctly, devote as much time as is necessary to get results and figure things out on their own because they are the "Guinea pigs." A lot has to happen to get a "thumbs-up" on the product. Very little has to happen (or not happen) to get a "thumbs-down."

          (6) Another important factor is "who wants and is driving the pilot." If a principal wants to do it s/he often tells a teacher "Congratulations! You get to pilot this in your classroom!" What the teacher hears is they have to learn a new tool (that probably isn't fully baked and documented," they won't get enough support, they don't get more time or relief in other areas to offset the additional time this trial will take and they are to be held accountable for student learning even though they don't know if or how the new product will work.

          (7) And best case -- and it still doesn't usually work out -- Pilots are often served up as free or reduced in price until such time as the product has proven itself and the teacher is happy -- then the vendor will expect to get paid and the teacher or principal is supposed to be a spokesperson and endorse and help sell the product to others. Guess what? The teacher or principal usually figures out that as long as they are unhappy about something, they get free use forever until the vendor gets anxious enough to demand payment. At that point -- I've seen it a 100 times before -- the teacher or principal is enamored with another product from Vendor 2 that they can "pilot" for free and the cycle (sans payoff for Vendor 1) repeats.

In short, PILOTS JUST DON'T WORK THE WAY VENDORS HOPE -- I don't usually see pilots paying off. The school doesn't have enough skin in the game, that moment where the school is supposed to pay never happens and it's often difficult to measure effectiveness with a new product that isn't totally worked out, or at the least, can't move the needle sufficiently in the alloted time to demonstrate it works.

Now FUNDED pilots are another thing! They do work! I'll cover that in Part 2..