Author: Joseph Thibault

This is called competition

I’m using dailylit.com to read Seth Godin’s “Bootstrapper’s Bible” and it’s great (it’s also completely free, I also just finished a novel by Cory Doctorow “Someone comes to town…”…let’s just say, not as good). Between he and Guy I think they could write the entrepreneur’s version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Here’s a quote that made me laugh (No idea on the page since it’s send via email).

In a free society, the government doesn’t control who gets the right to start a business. Anyone can do it—in most cases without a license, a permit, or a training course. This has one chilling implication: as soon as a business starts to make money, other people will notice, and they’ll start a business just like it. This is called competition, and it usually keeps people from retiring at the age of 28.

I was this close…

Rejected, bummed, but resolved

It’s a real bummer to work towards something so hard, to stack the chips in one’s favor and to practice and prepare and then get rejected (for the 2nd time).

I was keen on joining Teach For America because I believe I can make a difference in education given the opportunity.  It’s a hard reality to face that I just might not be good enough.  I feel somewhat a failure, cause 1000s of students and graduates did get it.  More so, I feel like I’m missing out on a huge opportunity to pay one forward to students around the country that are missing out on a higher quality education.

So, I’m a little bummed.  It’s like not getting that job that you were in the final round of interviews for.  Then finding out that all of the other candidates were ivy leaguers (which, apparently is the case for T4A).

I’m also resolved though, that we are on the right track (and yes, I include myself in the “we”).  It’s great that such educated graduates and students are filling the gaps that otherwise were filled with full-time substitutes and under qualified staff members.  T4A is an important stop-gap for our educational crisis, which is best, I think summed up by Friedman in a new Op-Ed in the Times:

In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. dominated the world in K-12 education. We also dominated economically. In the 1970s and 1980s, we still had a lead, albeit smaller, in educating our population through secondary school, and America continued to lead the world economically, albeit with other big economies, like China, closing in. Today, we have fallen behind in both per capita high school graduates and their quality. Consequences to follow.

According to Wendy Kopp, same article by Tom Friedman:

Our total applications are up 40 percent. Eleven percent of all Ivy League seniors applied, 16 percent of Yale’s senior class, 15 percent of Princeton’s, 25 percent of Spellman’s and 35 percent of the African-American seniors at Harvard. In 130 colleges, between 5 and 15 percent of the senior class applied.

At least I can say I made it to the final round.  Now if I can only figure out how to get Wendy Kopp to call me…

I may have missed this opportunity, but there will be more.  Now I have plenty of time on my hands to figure out what’s next.  I still have a job, I still have a wonderful life ahead of me.  Someday I’ll help tackle the issues in education a little bit more directly than just spouting nonsense on a blog, followed by no one, subscribed to by yours truly.  It is what it is.

Credit Cards and Classes

Students charged an average of $2,200 in direct eduction expenses — such as tuition — on their high-interest-rate credit cards last year, according to the study from Sallie Mae, the student loan giant.

Hell, most students would probably pay their rent with a CC if they could.  It’s no wonder…who really is to blame though?

  • The students and their poorly developed saving skills and financial knowledge….
  • or the college that charges 45,000 a year for tuition and room and board (and then add’s books on top)?

Obama like Bush on Education

“Obama is, in effect, giving George W. Bush a third term in education” (edweek: “Obama Echoes Bush on Education Ideas”)–here’s a link to a copied, published version on gdocs.

So says Diane Ravich, a writer for edweek.org.  She says this because Obama is carrying the torch for teacher quality, standardized assessment and charter schools.  Where he differs, according to the document, is private school vouchers.

The real place where he differs is funding.  Unfunded mandates are now getting some of the support that they’ve needed for years.

In the past, I would have classified myself as anti-standarized assessments (the term widely popularized by NCLB).  I’ve done a 180 though, not because I now like them, but because I understand how successful assessments for learning (not to measure learning) can help students and teachers both take the reigns  to promote better learning.

The difference between these types of assessment (for learning and to gauge learning) is how they are implemented in a classroom.  A pretest and post pretest review are assessments for learning.  The final test gauges learning.  More of the former better prepares the student for the final assessment (but only when the teacher and student take an active role in deciphering the strengths and weaknesses of a student and work to reward the strengths and fix the weaknesses).  Some might call it adaptive assessment or ongoing assessment, but really it’s a mind set.

I think this goes right along with merit-based pay as well.  Good and great teachers will be experts at this type of assessment, paving the way for student success throughout daily lessons.  Actively engaging students in their own learning.

Personally I’m excited by Obama’s education agenda so far, especially if he chooses to learn from the local challenges and triumphs that Michelle Rhee is seeing in DC’s schools.

Time will tell.

Fahrenheit 451 and Twitter

My wife and I are both reading F451 and we like it.  I’m especially enjoying Ray Bradbury’s succinct writing style and character development. Plus the alternative future history is pretty interesting (though not necessarily as interesting/fantastical as Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep which I just finished).

One quote though really struck home with me:

“Picture it.  Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion.  Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera.  Books cut shorter.  Condensations.  Digests, Tabloids.  Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.”…

“Classics cut to fit fifteen minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume…” (pg 86)

Sounds like the history of online communication: web pages, blogs, twitter.  Information summed up in 140 characters or less.  I’m not saying that we’re living in a world remotely like that of the scarcy, information deprived world of Montag the “fireman”, but it’s interesting that Bradbury was at least part-way right with his forward thinking.  Information will become more and more bite-sized…

Thank goodness we still have books available to inform our posts, pages and tweets.

The Golden Age of Education

In a recent “Open Education” post, the concept of TMI “too much information” was discussed in context of our ability to make sense of the news in front of us, buffetting us, surrounding us.  The article is a great read about how lots and lots of information has changed the game (for good or bad, well, that seems to be in the eye of the beholder).

The article ends with this, a discussion of “A Golden Age”:

A Golden Age

If knowledge is truly power, then we should be entering a golden age, one where everyone has unlimited access to the authority once held only by the elite in society.

The fact that we seem to be far from such a place does beg several questions.

And the biggest one befalls education – many have written that the next phase of schooling must move towards a focus that places the information age at its core for the next generation of learners. In fact, it would seem that the words of Postman are most prescient – twenty years ago he noted the volume of information that was being produced and the issues that it would present.

But education changed little over those 20 years. So we now have a large group of citizens unable to emotionally and intellectually handle the breadth of information available to them.

The answer is certainly not to limit information. The answer is in creating an educational system that helps individuals understand how to best make use of the knowledge.

The power that today’s information-rich society has available is truly unprecedented. As always, education is the great equalizer, but now we must turn our attention towards helping our young people learn how to filter, reduce and use the knowledge that is accessible to them.

I’m good with that.  The issue I see though (and I see this everyday) is that the realm of education by default, places itself outside the information.  It’s a walled castle with limited access and filtered news.  If you were to make a little venn diagram of “Information” and “Education’s Information” (which represents what students and teachers have at their disposal on any given day) then just their edges would be touching.

Early in the Open Education post it talked about the Davinci Institute’s stats on blogs, books, and videos.  At best, few schools provide their students access the complete library of information available through video and blog posts (blogger and youtube are often blocked completely).

I agree with the need to have education refocus on the information available.  But if it’s filtered what’s the point?

The Great College Hoax

I found a few great resources about the “education bubble” after posting last week.  The more I think about it the more it makes sense.  We’re pushing too hard for a certain idea of what is educational success: a college degree.  I think that we’re going to continue to see these issues, and until the cost of college is reigned in it will have very lasting future implications.  

Forbes ran a good article titled the Great College Hoax which focused on the fact that the financial benefits of colleges–usually quoted as 1,000,000 dollars more over a lifetime compared to HS graduates–is getting misconstrued and over-stated since the cost of college has risen so quickly.  The benefits may have been there at some point, but they are quickly receding under the burden of college loan debt.

The risks are hefty. Half of students entering college never earn a degree. Six in ten African-Americans depart without one. “Hundreds of thousands of young people leave our higher education system unsuccessfully, burdened with large student loans that must be repaid, but without the benefit of the wages a college degree provides,” warned a 2004 Education Trust study.

What I think is even worse is that the loans seem to be growing the education bubble.  Many of the lenders’ practices certainly resemble the main contributions to the housing bubble (adjustable rate mortgages, etc.)…but what happens when students get out of college with tons of debt and a crappy job market?  I don’t think anyone can foreclose your college degree; but I would happily give my framed masters diploma up to be out of  the debt!

Dramatic Growth in online courses

I never took an online course in high school or college.  In fact, the only online course I’ve taken was to learn that software that my company users.  The course was not very well organized (there was just too much going on). But I did learn from it.  

I might have missed the “elearning” wave in my education, but it’s certainly gaining traction today…and that’s a good thing.  I think there are lots of efficiencies to be found in elearning (both fully online and blended).  

The sharing of content, collaboration by two teachers separated by distance, and a greater wealth of rich content (video, audio, etc.) are all benefits borne from education moving online.  

Education week had a few good pieces about online learning today, one an interview with the President of Virtual High School in audio (here’s a direct link to the mp3).  Additionally, they covered the “rise in elearning”.  Here’s my favorite part:

The report notes that school districts are implementing these courses differently. Some are using online-only classes and others are creating a hybrid model that might include some face-to-face interaction with a teacher as well as digital curriculum and online interaction.

“The big trend is more blended or hybrid learning environments in the classroom,” says Susan D. Patrick, the president and chief executive officer of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, formerly known as the North American Council for Online Learning. “There are cases where schools have a highly qualified math or science teacher, but relying on a single textbook to teach all the concepts of the course may not be the best way to customize instruction in this digital age.”

So, this is great and all–but there is an issue that stands in the way of wide spread adoption and that’s elearning in higher education.  Many institutions charge the same rates for online as in class (despite the obvious cost savings of not using rooms and giving freedom to the facilitators).  In fact, my wife took a course from UWisconsin and they put a premium on her online course.  

The fact of the matter is the elearning is cheaper.  The cost of the facilitators remains the same, but if you’re not printing papers, scheduling rooms, heating said room or using electricity, there are savings to be had.  Even more so when elearning institutions streamline and automate registration, certifications, transcripts and other tasks that may currently require manpower.