♦ Ideas in Education ♦
Topics:
• Learning On-line
• Creating 21st Century Schools
• Facilities Work
• Operation and Finance Division Metrics
• School District Reform and Governance
- The Center for the Reform of School Systems (CRSS)
- Empowerment - Decentralization
- Outsourcing
• Building Schools in the 3rd World
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♦ Learning On-line ♦
♦ Why Learn Online?
On-line education in the K-12 sector is rapidly becoming a useful tool to families, students and schools. Over 70% of public schools today offer at least one course through distance learning. http://www.kcdistancelearning.com/
♦ Why use online learning?:
• Credit recovery - http://www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=2339
• Why students like online learning -http://www.worldwidelearn.com/education-articles/benefits-of-online-learning.htm
• Blended learning - http://www.inacol.org/research/promisingpractices/NACOL_PP-BlendedLearning-lr.pdf
♦ A Survey of the Attitudes of Students about Traditional Brick & Mortar Classes vs. Online Classes
About the Survey
The Aventa Learning “Beyond the Classroom” online survey was designed and analyzed by Ketchum Global Research Network and fielded by Braun Research. The survey was fielded to a national sample of 500 children age 13- to 17-year-olds from April 20-24, 2010, and to 326 KC Distance Learning (Aventa is a division of KCDL) students in May. The survey has a margin of error of +/-4.4%. Ketchum Survey of Traditional and Online Education Options
DEMOGRAPHIC
- 50/50 male/female split
- majority of baseline students (84%) had not taken an online class
STUDENT-RELATED
- Home school and online school students were most likely to say they always get the attention and help that they need from teachers (66% and 61%).
- Home school (66%) and online school students (61%) were more than four times as likely as public school students (14%) to report that they always get the attention and help that they need from teachers.
- Almost all online school students (98%) reported that they get more challenges when they are doing well in classes, followed by home school students (66%), private school students (50%) and public school students (47%).
- Online school students were the least likely to report boredom as a challenge in school, while public school students were the most likely to cite boredom (12% vs. 44%).
- Online school students overwhelmingly favored sports as their favorite school-related, nonacademic activity (85%).
- More than one-third of students said their parents would consider enrolling them in an online middle or high school program instead of their current school (36% vs. 64% whose parents would not)
- Students who have taken an online class were more likely to say they would go to college (46% vs. 31% of students who have not taken an online class). SCHOOL-RELATED
- Even students are feeling the budget cuts - when asked what they would add to their school day, the top 3 classes included drama/music, foreign language, AP courses
- Distraction and boredom topped the list of "challenging" things in school
- Almost half said their favorite part of school is learning new things
- Johnny Depp and Taylor Swift were the top picks for substitute-for-the-day
- Teachers took a beating with 50% saying they were uninteresting and almost half saying horrible teachers would make them switch to another school
- Most teens are college-bound with 2/3 saying they plan to go to college after graduating and almost half indicating that if they could do anything after graduation, they'd go to college OTHER ISSUES
- Bullies and personal safety concerns weigh heavily on the minds of teens today - more than half confirmed there are bullies in school and close to 40% said safety concerns would make them switch to a different school
- Teens challenged the traditional school structure with close to 88% said that if they were in charge of their school, they would offer more electives, allow students to pick the time of day they took classes and would allow students to take online courses ♦ eSchool News Webinar - "Putting "e" in Learning for the "i" Generation Presentation by Dr. Cathy Mincberg and Mr. Gregg Levin - Aventa Learning/KC Distance Learning Powerpoint Presentation: eSchool News - Putting the e in Learning for the i Generation.ppt Webinar video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1CPjwcBAWU ♦ Creating 21st Century Schools ♦ 
As a long term educator, I believe the best learning environments foster creativity in all students. A healthy school system is simply a necessity. School buildings are an important part of the education program. The facilities assessment work began with a community brain-storming session to establish Facilities Guiding Principles at a summit known as ReShape School: Place + Space.
♦ Reshape School: Place + Space Conference
Over 200 community member met for a day and a half to brain-storm ideas after a series of presentations by provocateurs. Sir Ken Robinson spoke on the need for creativity in schools and DK of MediaSnackers taught everyone how the youth today use technology constantly. The hard work culminated is a set of Guiding Principles that has guided the district's facility work for two years. http://www.reshape.pps.k12.or.us/
In the Portland Public Schools (PPS), buildings are 65 years old on the average. Many have heating, roofing and plumbing systems far beyond their useful life. PPS has assessed the condition of each building and will formulate a comprehensive facilities plan by November 2009. The following are some of the activities and findings of facilities work over the past two years. Cathy Mincberg, Chief Operating Officer, April 2009
♦ The Condition of PPS Facilities Video
Reference Files:
♦ Facilities Work ♦
Reshape Schools Homepage - This site contains all the facilities work reports and analyses at the Portland Public Schools.
Facilities Assesment Report - This is a report of the findings of the complete facilities assessment of the Portland Public Schools facilities conducted by Magellan Co. and DeJong and Associates.
♦ Photos
♦ 21st Century Classroom Pod at West Linn High School - West Linn, Oregon
♦ Reshape Schools Conference Logo
♦ 21st Century Learning Resource Center at
West Linn High School
♦ Operations and Finance Division Metrics ♦
♦ HISD Business Services (5.8mb PDF) - This is a report covering over five years of performance metrics on the operations of the Houston Independent School District Business Services Division - Dr. Cathy Mincberg, Chief Business Officer.
♦ Portland Public Schools Department Goal Overviews (MS Word): This is document of the goals for each department within the Division of Operations and Financial Services at PPS for 2008-09. - Dr. Cathy Mincberg, Chief Operating Officer
♦ Finance and Business Operations Department Goals Cover Sheet
♦ Finance and Business Operations Department Goals General
♦ Finance and Business Operations Department Goals Detail
♦ School District Reform ♦
♦ The Center for the Reform of School Systems -
CRSS Believes:
- All children can and must learn at grade level or above.
- All children should reach their learning potential.
- The achievement gap can and must be eliminated.
- Schools alone do not educate children, but the school effect is huge.
- School districts can be high-performing organizations.
- School boards are responsible for district performance and should commit themselves to achieving these goals.
CRSS Training Can Transform School Boards
CRSS’s leadership training, consulting, and coaching programs will teach board members how to govern for high student achievement, efficient district operations, and broad public support. http://crss.org
♦ Houston School District Reform - Based on the experiences of the Houston Indepentend School District during my board tenure, Dr. Don McAdams has written a gripping tale of school district reform. Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools is pathbreaking because it is the first detailed first-person description of the workings of a very successful reform school board by a member of that board. It reads like a spellbinding novel and describes in detail, but with tact and wisdom, the actions of a large number of players who are cited by name. The players include one superintendent that was fired by the board, another superintendent who accomplished some very good things but then began to ignore the policies decided on by the board and avoided a confrontation by leaving to take a position with another school district, an extremely difficult-to-work-with union leader, community and regional business leaders, various ethnic and other interest groups, legislators, state and city bureaucrats, and Governors Ann Richards and George W. Bush. - http://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Save-Urban-Schools-Winning/dp/0807738840/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267825342&sr=1-1
♦ School Board Governance - To provide essential guidance to urban school board members committed to high achievement for all children, Don McAdams presents a comprehensive approach to board leadership he calls reform governance. This accessible framework brings together all the work of an urban school board, including everything from big ideas about core beliefs and theories of action for change to the fundamental relationships and processes through which boards and superintendents work together and the leadership role boards have in building community support for sustained change. Taking into account the hot political arena of urban education, reform governance:
* Helps school board members understand why it is necessary to redesign urban districts and what their role in the process should be.
* Sets forth principles that boards can use as guides to action, and gives real-life examples of how they work.
* Shows how a strong board and superintendent team can work together to be agents for change.
♦ Empowerment - Decentralization
In 1990, the Houston Board of Education issued a Declaration of Beliefs and Visions for HISD that called for a “new educational structure...that...is decentralized and features shared decision- making.” The 1990 Beliefs and Visions statement also said that schools should have the maximum freedom to develop and implement the methods that best achieve the goal of high student achievement. The document in the following link explains the empowerment, also call decentralization, efforts in the Houston Independent School District.
http://reason.org/files/wsf/houston.pdf
http://www.houstonisd.org/HISDConnectEnglish/Images/PDF/BeliefsGoals2010.pdf
♦ Bringing School Reforms to Scale - The Story of Five Urban District Who Succeeded (including the Houston Independent School District)
"Embracing Systemic Reform: Lessons from Five Award-Winning School Districts"
AEI Education Outlook, July 2010
By Heather Zavadsky
Summary
Despite the emphasis on comprehensive education reform in the federal Race to the Top initiative, current headlines reveal continued pursuit of piecemeal reforms such as pay for performance, teacher tenure, school restructuring, and myriad other stand-alone solutions. The end result of such reforms is a patchwork of misaligned programs that do not consider the ultimate goal: a seamless K-12 education system for all students. In Bringing School Reform to Scale (Harvard Education Press, 2009), I use the stories of five urban school districts to make the case that raising achievement for all students requires systemic change. These five award-winning districts demonstrated either higher performance or greater improvement than similar districts in their states. The practices and reform paths of each district offer lessons for educators and policymakers on how to move whole districts from unacceptable to noteworthy performance.
Key points in this Outlook:
* To be effective, education reform must be holistic and encompass grades K-12 across an entire school district.
* Five urban school districts have seen significant gains in student achievement by defining clear learning and operational goals.
* The management principles that contributed to these districts' success provide key lessons that may be useful for practitioners or policymakers interested in systemic education reform.
Click here to read this Outlook online or to obtain a printable copy. <http://www.aei.org/outlook/100974>
♦ Outsourcing
When Dr. Rod Paige became the Houston Independent School District superintendent, he was convinced that the district needed to focus on the academic achievement of students. He saw too much energy and time spent on functions where the district lacked expertise. Many non-core functions were led by ex-educators who had no training in leading a non-education activity like facilities maintenance or food service. The district was operating the largest food service/restaurant operation in the county. Additionally, the maintenance department was maintaining over 25,000,000 sq. ft. of aging buildings.
Dr. Paige established three guiding principles to guide the district in considering outsourcing non-core functions.
1. It must work better.
2. It must cost less.
3. It must take care of the people.
The decision to outsource both facilities maintenance and food service was a decision to outsource the management only. All employees in both departments remained employees of the district with their salaries and benefits intact.
Food service was outsourced to ARAMARK. A small ARAMARK management team working with and supervising the HISD employees turned a $2.9 million annual loss into an $11 million annual positive position. The additional revenue was used to give salary raises to the traditionally low paid food service workers, often at a higher rate than the non-food service other district employees, and to raise the quality of food served to the students of the district. Food quality was also upgraded with the removal of high calorie-low nutritional value foods from the cafeterias and vending machines.
The facilities maintenance department management only was outsourced to ServiceMaster a year later. Over six years the department more than tripled the maintenance work done on the schools with one-third fewer employees. That employee reduction was handled entirely by natural attrition. The over $30 million savings produced over the six years was then redirected to fund the instructional programs of the district.
Further information and specific metrics on the performance of outsourcing can be found in the section title Operation and Finance Division Metrics - HISD Business Services above.
• Building Schools in the 3rd World - Honduras
Los Charros, Honduras - In rural and mountainous Los Charros, we renovated a 4 room elementary school. It was a leaky series of buildings up a hill so steep our truck couldn't make the climb. The children, always anxious to help, unloaded the construction materials. I would be the weakling photographing the six year olds carry 4 gallons of paint each up this hill.
The School in Los Charros - The roof and toilets of the bathroom (bano) at Los Charros school were a disaster. Scott became the official "Bano Fix It Guy". It is amazing how much you miss that flush when it is broken.
The bano repair at Los Charros - This is the same bathroom after we finished replacing the roof, repairing the toilets and painting.
Painting Partner at Los Charros - This is Jose, my sanding, scraping and painting buddy. The children were amazing. Helpful, hardworking and filled with happy enthusiasm. With only the tiniest bit of Spanish (me) and English (them), we spent the day working and conversing.
School Supply Delivery - With each school project, we also delivered school supplies, shoes for the shoeless, and backpacks. The blue tarp is the school. We worked this day constructing a cinderblock one room school for these children in an area so remote it took us an hour over rugged trails (not even roads) to reach them.
Building a Foundation at Plan Grande - Another day, Scott and the Honduran experts worked with only string, sticks and machetes to lay out the foundation for a 4 room school. The men of the community then used pickaxes to dig a 24 inch deep foundation for six hours in the Honduran heat and humidity.
Ear Clinic at San Isidro - On Thursday, a team of American and Honduran women spent the day checking for ruptured ear drums and cleaning the wax, stones and insects out of the ears of over 100 children. We also tested everyone's hearing. We found numerous children with lifelong ear pain and partial deafness. These children were failing in school and they and their parents thought it was because they were dumb. A totally deaf girl with no communications ability had a Helen Keller moment when our leader, a teacher of the deaf, taught her 30 words in American Sign Language. She rushed around the room pounding on things demanding to know the sign for them. She and her mother were able to "talk" for the first time in her 8 year old life.
Our Helen Keller making the sign for butterfly.
The Orphanage in San Pedro Sula - And finally, we spent our last day visiting an orphanage in San Pedro Sula. There were 150 children, most with disabilities, and 6 women to care for them. While Scott repaired the broken windows that were keeping the baby room at unbearable temperatures, I held children. They were devastated when we had to let go. So little human contact and no toys for stimulation. It takes 3-5 years to adopt a child in Honduras so most spend their entire lives institutionalized.
