The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn.”
– Alvin Toffler

NYTimes columnist David Brooks writes that faith in the future requires faith in education. He directs readers to a 2008 essay on the need for an overall economic strategy by Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, in which he notes the following:

A final strategic failure is in many ways the most disconcerting. All Americans know that the public education system is a serious weakness. Fewer may realize that citizens retiring today are better educated than the young people entering the workforce. In the global economy, just being an American is no longer enough to guarantee a good job at a good wage. Without world-class education and skills, Americans must compete with workers in other countries for jobs that could be moved anywhere. Unless we significantly improve the performance of our public schools, there is no scenario in which many Americans will escape continued pressure on their standard of living. . . .
The problem is not money-America spends a great deal on public education, just as we do on health care. The real problem is the structure of our education system. The states, for example, need to consolidate some of the 14,000 local school districts whose existence almost guarantees inefficiency and inequality of education across communities. Instead, government leaders haggle over incremental changes . . .

Effective Leaders
States are generally still lacking in education innovation, according to a new report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The full report is available here. Tennessee got a ‘C’.

Effective Teachers
Memphis City Schools signed a $90 million grant agreement with the Gates Foundations for implement an innovative teacher evaluation and compensation system.

Texas plans to link the performance of students to approval of their teachers preparation programs.

Rigorous, Relevant Curriculum
One TN high school has surrendered! They’ve stopped trying to regulate inappropriate cell phone use. Instead, they’re using cell phones as learning tools. Here is a memo from Greeneville High School principal Dr. Linda Stroud. Here are slides from a recent presentation school leaders gave, which illustrates how this approach completely eliminated disciplinary actions based on cellphone misuse and led to more engaging classes.

How fast should we be boarding the national standards train? Jay Greene offers some caution as many states, including Tennessee, scramble to adopt these standards to qualify for Race to the Top grant money.

Advocates for the status quo and/or pure nonsense are much better positioned to control the process of national standard-setting and test-writing than are advocates for meaningful reform grounded in evidence-based approaches.

Sufficient Resources
What has stimulus funding done for education so far? Mostly, it’s provided funding to maintain and create jobs. Is that a good thing?

Funds raised recently will provide more Jackson-Madison County students access to dual enrollment programs.

A discussion of the rewards and risks of electronic textbooks.

January 29, 2010
April 16, 2010
August 6, 2010
October 29, 2010

Location:

Room 211, Renaissance Hotel
611 Commerce St
Nashville, TN 37203
(615) 741 - 2966

Send the Ed Secretary back to school, proposes Jay Mathews, because that’s where Duncan and his predecessors, had the most impact.

Mathews may not realize it but the same thing, writ small, happens in schools everywhere. How often does this year’s superstar teacher become next year’s math or literacy coach? If this thinking applied to sports, Chase Utley would become the Phillies batting coach next year.

Effective Teachers
Are the teachers in your school idealists, disheartened or contented? And what are the implications for the students?

A plea to use technology in teaching (specifically in education law). This is a presentation by Justin Bathon, at the Education Law Association’s annual meeting last month.

Rigorous, Relevant Curricula
Is this an example of supplemental education services (SES) on the iPhone (or online)?

Sufficient Resources
I wouldn’t want to lose this library “book”. One Massachusetts school will have students checking out Kindles for many of their reading assignments..

The FCC is now seeking comments on National Broadband plan and access to education. You’ll see from the notice that, among other things, the agency would like examples of blended on and off-line education programs, educational data interoperation, accountabilty and reporting, infrastructure initiatives.

Would more schools be more effective in Afghanistan than more troops?

Tony Blair and Arne Duncan are promoting “community schools.” By 2010, all 23,000 public schools in Britain will be “community schools” with extended hours and community services.

A copy of the report can be downloaded at the following link.

Meeting Agenda.

STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
1st Floor Conference Room
Davy Crockett Tower
500 James Robertson Parkway
Nashville, TN
November 6, 2009
8:30 a.m.

Andres Alonso, the superintendent in Baltimore has been working hard to change the leadership culture by giving principals power of the purse. And the student performance in Baltimore is steadily and consistently improving.

Under the old staffing model, principals would “inflate their numbers to get more money,” but still had virtually no say over what programs were in their buildings, said Matthew Hornbeck, the principal of Hampstead Hill Academy, a pre-K-8 charter school that until 2004 had been a traditional district school. “It was a game everyone played, and it was wrong and unfair,” said Mr. Hornbeck, who helped Mr. Alonso lead the effort to change the funding formula.

While many principals have embraced their new budgeting powers, the reality at times has been rocky, Mr. Alonso said. If a school gets a bill for a $150,000 textbook order, for example, it has to have the money to pay for it.

“That is a major culture change,” the CEO said.

Effective Teachers
Secretary Duncan, in a speech at Columbia University calls for overhaul of teacher preparation programs.

Many teachers are turning to online school jobs in the face of layoffs.

Rigorous, Relevant Curriculum
Even as the use of value-added data spreads from coast to coast, it causes controversy. This article in the Los Angeles Times refers specifically to Williamson County and Tennessee.

In an effort to ascertain the causes of the need for remedial classes, UNLV is now requiring freshman to “reverse-engineer” their academic upbringing.

State Board Conference Room
9th Floor Andrew Johnson Tower
710 James Robertson Parkway
Nashville, TN 37243
(615) 741 - 2966

WebEx Conference Call Instructions

Summary: Fourth meeting of the BEP Review Committee
Start Time: 10/21/2009 1:00 PM
URL: http://stateoftennessee.na6.acrobat.com/bepmeeting/
Access: Anyone who has the URL for the meeting can enter the room
Conference Number(s): 1-877-468-0082; 532-5141 (In Nashville)
Participant Code: 1220

Hamilton County is partnering with the Public Education Foundation to help assistant principals become school leaders.

Effective Teachers
Jackson Madison County Schools are experimenting with teachers looping to successive grades with their class.

Rigorous, Relevant Curriculum
One Nashville public high school is expanding dual enrollment. Here is a letter to the editor from the parent of a student who benefited from dual enrollment.

TN students still trail the nation, which isn’t improving, on 4th and 8th grade math tests. Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise or even a disappointment since Americans only rank education 7th on the list of important issues.

A Rand study praises NYC for ending social promotion and instead providing interventions for struggling students at several levels.

Sufficient resources
The Council on American Private Education explains why nonpublic schools should not have been excluded from US DoE’s innovation fund opportunities.

Republican and Democratic politicians propose a tax-credit to encourage private companies to rebuild crumbling school buildings.

Another article linking dropouts and the growing prison population.

State Board of Education Conference Room
9th Floor Andrew Johnson Tower
710 James Robertson Parkway
Nashville, TN 37243

WebEx Conference Call Instructions

Summary: Third meeting of the BEP Review Committee
Start Time: 10/15/2009 1:00 PM
Duration: 02:30
New URL: http://stateoftennessee.na6.acrobat.com/r54138294/
Telephony Information: Audio Bridge:
Conference Number(s): 1-877-468-0082; 532-5141 (Nashville)
Participant Code: 1220