More Money for More Time with Professional Development

Time is an ongoing challenge in 21st Century education. Despite all that has changed in schools, we remain tied to a 19th Century agrarian calendar. As as a result, time becomes an opponent in our quest to improve education.

Time may be at its most precious in relation to modern teacher professional development. Our school calendars, established generations ago, often provide scant time for teacher training, sometimes only four or five days.

Yet teacher professional development has never been more crucial as schools seek ways to alter and improve classroom instruction. In pursuit of more time for this activity, we shorten school days, having late starts, early dismissals, sometimes even entire days with no students. However, we do so with extreme reservations because we know one of the Correlates of the Effective Schools Research is to carefully guard student time on task (Lezotte, 1991).

As our local economies and our state tax bases slowly improve in the wake of the devastating recession of 2008 to 2015, we may be on the verge of an opportunity to improve education by creating more time for professional development. Most schools in the United States have been cash-strapped for nine years. As a result, teacher salaries have fallen behind, teachers have suffered, and the teacher shortage has approached critical levels in many instructional areas.

Now is the time to put more money toward teacher pay and include additional days as part of the package. This can be done at a local level by re-prioritizing our budgets, but it should also be a state initiative.

Some state legislators believe that fully funding their state's education formula does little to attract attention to themselves, advance their political clout, or garner votes in the next election. However, tying new dollars for teachers to additional time for professional development could be a stirring idea. We know teacher training has the potential to enhance student achievement. This would be using tax money directly for the purpose of  improving classroom instruction.

This will be an idea most teachers will support. Most teachers have never been afraid to put in additional time, and many are actively seeking ways to improve. Linking additional pay to time for school improvement could be a winning combination.

I urge us all to talk to our legislators about putting more money into education with the intent of purchasing additional days and ultimately improving education in the United States.

Image Credit: The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí, 1931, Museum of Modern Art, New York City

Parents Know Better that American Schools are Strong

There is a paradox present in the public perceptions of the schools in the United States. For years I have seen this same result in the annual Gallup poll on American public K-12 education. A paraphrase of one question reads, “Overall, how satisfied are you with the quality of K-12 education in the U.S. today?”

In the latest poll (which is very similar to poll results for each of the last ten years), only 45 percent of those polled expressed some level of satisfaction with the quality of America’s public schools. The majority, or 54 percent, indicated dissatisfaction.

At the same time for each of the last 17 years, people were polled with a similar question, but one with a distinct difference. Parents were asked, “How satisfied are you with the quality of education your oldest child is receiving?”

Overwhelmingly, parents expressed satisfaction with the quality of the local school system their child is attending. A dominant 76 percent of parents said they were either completely satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the educational quality of their child’s K-12 school. Only 18 percent expressed dissatisfaction.

And these results were very similar to the results recorded fifteen years earlier in 2000 and with little deviation throughout the intervening years.

If this polling truly represents the length and breadth of our great nation, then the two numbers should be similar and not polar opposites. Gallup is among the best in the business. I trust their poll numbers. On a school-by-school basis, our American public is pleased with public school quality. The difference in the polling tells me there is a perception problem.

People know their local schools from first-hand experience. However, the only way the average person can know our nation’s schools is by what they read and hear from national news, politicians, and pundits.

Let us cut through the phony criticism. Americans like their schools. They regard the schools as providing quality education to their children.

This is an opportunity to celebrate and demonstrate our optimism for public schools. In business the customer is always right. For America’s schools, their customers support the work they are doing.

Finding a New Vision for 21st Century Learning

Educators need to recognize that education is changing . . . schools are changing. We need to find a new model of education for the 21^st Century.

There was a time when schools served the students of their school district. District lines were drawn, and students were required to attend the school within their district. Schools set their expectations, and students had little choice but to meet the expectations of the school. In those days, if schools had competition, it was probably the local parochial school. The other option was for students to simply drop out, and many did.

Then in the 1980’s, schools opened their boundaries due to open enrollment. Competition was suddenly the neighboring districts. Schools had to be as good or better than their neighbors to prosper or even survive.

But here in the  21^st  Century the game has changed again and dramatically. With online learning, our competition is state-wide, it’s nation-wide, it’s world-wide. And to look at the evidence, a person cannot say these online schools are not offering quality. They are. But they are also doing something more. They are custom tailoring the education programs to each individual student. They are using a business model and providing exceptional service to their customers.

To compete in the 21^st Century, schools will need to emulate, and even surpass, this model.

The best schools now are challenging their students with active learning where the students are the center of the classroom. The teacher is no longer the holder of knowledge. Facts today are but a click away. Students today need to become independent learners and critical thinkers. The classroom must then be a place where students research, find their own answers, work together to solve problems, create new knowledge, and teach each other. The role of the teacher is then changed to a facilitator of learning, i.e. a guide, a problem presenter, a questioner, a librarian, and a collaborator.

The best schools are also utilizing technology tools to facilitate this higher order thinking and learning. And please understand that we should not buy technology because it is cool, or because other schools are investing in it. We need to use it because it is necessary to fully implement our vision of  21^st  Century learning.

If you are not yet there, this is the year we all need to find our vision.

The above was part of my address to faculty and staff as part of our back-to-school workshop.

Where to Go with 1-to-1 Laptop Learning

"It is not about the machines; it is about teaching and learning." I have heard this so often when discussing one-to-one laptop learning, I wonder if it bears repeating. I hope this fact is becoming common knowledge.

Sioux Central School District in Sioux Rapids, Iowa, just completed its second year as a one-to-one laptop learning school for grades 3 through 12. The school has enjoyed great success in grades 6 through 12, so that it upgraded laptops and infrastructure this year for grades 4 and 5 and added laptops to grade 3 as well. With the year ended, I use this blog post to reflect on where we should be heading for the future of our school and its students.

There is another prolific statement I hear when discussing technology for the classroom. When someone asks the questions, "Laptops or tablets?" or "PC or Mac?" I hear the reply, "Well it all depends on what you plan to do with the technology." Although it is an accurate response, it is also a little smug. It leaves unexplained what schools should be doing with the technology

Simply put, our aim should be high-order thinking skills. We want our students to be creators of knowledge, not simply consumers. Using Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy, we want our students involved in project-based learning where they are evaluating their sources. We also want them re-teaching, so they are breaking down the information and reassembling it into a new whole.

I get very excited about what is happening in our classrooms when I visit and I see students highly engaged in non-traditional instruction. They are using their laptops, but they are relating personally to each other. They are working in groups, arguing what is relevant and how they should present their findings back to the rest of the class. Now that is a worthy goal for any classroom.

One-to-one laptops are allowing students to learn and retain at higher levels. The difference can be explained using the Learning Pyramid from the National Training Laboratories in Bethel, Maine. The pyramid reveals how content retention is related to the methodology used by the teacher:

Average Retention Rates

5% - Lecture

10% --- Reading

20% - Audio-Visual

30% --- Demonstration

50% --- Group Discussion

75% ------- Practice by Doing

90% ----------- Teaching Others

Laptop learning changes the classroom dynamic from more traditional passive learning, i.e., lecture, reading, and audio-visuals, to the active learning of practice by doing and teaching others.

Will the Postal Service Survive? Will Public Schools?

Many in our national are predicting the demise of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), an institution that has served its people since the birth of our nation. Some say it is electronic media that is heralding the end of snail mail. Certainly that is a factor. However, as the internet has boomed so has online purchasing and home delivery. At the same time when the USPS is struggling, private industry is stepping in and prospering. Private carriers are quickly and efficiently delivering the goods and providing service superior to the USPS and at a competitive price.

What led to this decline in the USPS was not simply the advent of e-mail. It was hubris. The USPS felt that no one could compete with them. They were established in every town across our nation and supported by our federal government. With this hubris, this arrogant pride, came an apathy for service. Envelopes not addressed to USPS standards are returned in order to teach the sender a lesson. "Service with a smile" is an ironic joke quipped by customers at the windows. Meanwhile, the USPS leadership flagrantly throws multi-million dollar extravagant parties for its leadership at the expense of its patrons. This hubris is the greatest threat to the future of the USPS.

So what is the greatest threat to America's public schools? The same hubris. It is this hubris that is being exploited in the latest expose, "The War on Kids."

Schools have been slow to respond to the needs of its customers. At the same time, competition is springing up, and it is flourishing. After two decades of charter schools, no evidence shows charter schools offer any better education than public schools. Yet they are more successful in many situations. The research shows that charter school parents are happier with their charter schools than they are with public schools. And in our competitive economy, happy customers are the true measure of who will survive.

But public schools are not as far down the long pier as the USPS. We have time to respond, and we have a loyal public that truly wants us to succeed. We need to break the paradigm that schools have something that kids need, and they have to play by our rules or miss out. We need to meet the needs of our customers, facilitate the type of learning environments where kids are drawn, and work to satisfy our parents. Let our schools be a place where education is tailored to the individual, where school work captivates the students, where teaching meets the days and hours of service our public would like, and where parents are shown the value of what we are doing for their children.

Education Where One Size Fits All

In ancient Greek mythology, Procrustes was a brute who ran an inn along a traveled road. He had a single bed for weary travelers, and Procrustes boasted how his special bed would perfectly fit every guest. After the sojourner bedded down for the evening, Procrustes would bind the guest to the bed. If the guest was shorter than the bed, he was stretched to fit. And if he was too long, his limbs were amputated and trimmed down to size.

Eventually, Procrustes met his superior in Theseus who fitted Procrustes to his own bed. But being a mythological character, Procrustes did not die. Instead he lingered in hiding for his chance to use his talents again. And after many centuries, he found work drafting educational policy for the government.  Verberans a mortuis equum.

There is little point in me further exposing and condemning those myopic policies that have been publicly ridiculed for over a decade except that nothing seems to change. Moreover, I support testing and accountability. I simply find arbitrary labels of failing to be pointless, especially when they are irrespective of the demographics and socio-economic condition of the school district and its inhabitants. Additionally, I grow weary of the expectation that schools must focus on ensuring all students achieve at a single unrealistic level which ignores high achievers and steals time away from the arts. Finally, I deny as inaccurate and unjust the criticism that schools are not working to stop bullying in the hallways and are instead making all our kids fat solely because of the school lunches we serve in our cafeteria.

I have no call to action with this blog post. I simply needed to vent. I will have something more positive and purposeful next time. 

Before Becoming a 1-to-1 School: Five Preliminary Steps

The rapidly growing number of 1-to-1 laptop schools calls to question what a laptop learning school is. Very simple mathematics suggests that a school merely needs to purchase enough laptop computers--one for every student--and Presto! suddenly it becomes a 1-to-1 school.

But can a school spend all that money on technology and still miss the mark? I believe it can, and some do. There is a difference between laptop learning schools and schools with laptops. Before your school invests in the hardware to become a 1-to-1 school, take some steps up front.

1. It Starts with the Realization of the Need for Change. Examine the 21st Century skills. Think about the future our students will enter. Discuss what a classroom should look like now. If your system does not recognize a need to change instruction, adding technology is rather pointless. But change begins with having some fierce conversations about the need for change and the school's vision for the future of education.

2. It Takes Vision. The expression a computer is just a tool is overused to the point of becoming a cliche. Unless a school knows how it wants to use the tools, its evolution will be hampered. Schools that are using the laptops most successfully are trying to create student-centered classrooms. They want teachers to take an assisting role as students learn to teach themselves and each other. The vision may be for research using online resources and digital text books. This may call for 1-to-1 tablets. Or the vision could require more powerful technology tools to facilitate project-based learning and knowledge creation.

3. Hit the Road. One of the reasons many technology plans are never realized is that people don't know what they don't know. By the time they understand it, there is something new. The faculty need to get out of the building and see how other schools are using technology to accelerate learning. They need to attend conferences, seminars, and sales demonstrations. After broad exposure to a number of ideas and systems, staff can return to help forge a new direction for their own school.

4. Share the Decision.  A major acquisition of technology should result in a sea change in the pedagogy of the school. Therefore, this decision cannot be made by the administration and school board alone. The teachers who will be implementing this system need to be deeply involved in the decision. The discussion should include the support staff as well. The school needs to unite behind such a significant shift in methodology. This can only be accomplished if there is participation and support from the rank and file.

5. Include the Community.  Ultimately, it is your community that is paying the bill. They are your customers, and a school always need to be responsive to its public. Begin the dialogue in your PTO and advisory groups. Have the conversation with the people at the coffee shop. Involve your business leaders. Your local businesses may be your strongest proponents because they see how technology is changing their workplace (maybe faster than it is changing schools), and they need a technologically literate workforce.

So does this mean we should wait and take our time? Certainly not. With the speed at which our world is changing, we do not have time to wait. But I will address this in a post yet to come.

What other steps are necessary? Please feel free to offer your additional suggestions in the comments below.

Now is the Time for Bold Leadership

America's public schools in the 21st Century have an unclear future. Never before in our nation's history have they been subjected to such scrutiny and ridicule. They are the targets of criticism from across the political spectrum, and their relevance is being questioned.

School leaders are caught in between, supporting their institutions and trying to make improvements. The challenge is to make change within systems where change is challenging.

Although our system is comfortable and remembered fondly by previous generations, bold change leaders are needed. Complaining about the absurdity of high stakes testing, penalties, and competition does not accomplish anything on behalf of our students.

I see some school administrators trying to polish the edges of our old system rather than leading their districts with bold initiatives. Now is the time for action. We need to embrace the concepts of 21st Century learning. We need to train our faculties in best practices and utilize the new research emerging on how the brain learns. We need to bring modern technologies to bear in accomplishing our aims. And we must move the system toward a new horizon.

When we make the necessary changes and improvements, the worth of public schools will be redeemed.

Are You an Evangelist for 21st Century Learning?

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results." We are not sure who first said this, but we agree it makes sense.

We are guilty of this in education. Our calendar is based upon the agrarian cycle of the 1700's, and our secondary school structure is based on the industrial model of the 1800's. The students sit in the desks facing and listening to the teacher for nine months. And if they follow this process and all the rules for 13 straight years, the students get a high school diploma. The length of the days remains the same. The length of the year remains the same. Then some reformers decide that taking some time from this process for some more testing or spreading salary dollars around will make the difference.

But now in the year 2012, we stand at the opportunity for a new era to begin. We can retain what has been largely successful over the years and apply the power of modern technology to change what is happening in our classrooms on a daily basis. Students can use technology tools to connect to resources around the world. They can seek out their own knowledge and guide their own discovery. We need only to create the student-centered instructional model and give our students the technology tools to realize this vision for our future, focusing on the 21st Century skills of critical thinking, communication, creativity, and collaboration.

Among my concerns, the readers of this blog will likely be the people I communicate with regularly and who see this vision for a better future. But now we need to take this message main stream. Are you an evangelist for this movement?

Some call my dear friend and colleague John Carver (@johnccarver) an evangelist because he is out front leading the call. We, the people who "get it" and are reading this message, need to get the word out. Make this vision part of our professional discussion when we have meetings. Take the time to attend the seminars and read the resources on the networks. Connect with your colleagues. Bring back what you learn and pass on this concept you believe in.

This is no longer a separate add-on to education. This is the future. Be a part of the change we seek for our children.

Business Versus Personal

The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, posted a blog about the NBA lockout on November 18, 2011, entitled, “Business vs. Personal.” He starts with a few lines from a favorite guy movie, The Godfather:

     Hagen: Your father wouldn't want to hear this, Sonny. This is business not personal.
     Sonny: They shoot my father and it's business, my ass!
     Hagen: Even shooting your father was business not personal, Sonny!
     Sonny: Well then, business is going to have to suffer.

But later he follows a tangent that I thought was relevant to school leadership jobs, and I thought someone else, somewhere, might like to read this:

“Quick tangent: My father served as the superintendent of schools in Easton, Massachusetts, for nearly twenty years. He retired in the summer of 2009, at the age of 62, for a variety of reasons … but mainly this one. He didn’t want to stay too long. When you’re a superintendent, it only takes one renegade school committee member, one unexpected budget cut, one scandal or one tragedy to shift momentum against you. Once it happens, you can’t get it back. Adversaries smell your weakening power the same way zombies smell blood. You start getting undermined or browbeaten into ideas you never wanted to do. By the time you finally resign or get replaced, those final years become part of your legacy, the last thing anyone remembers about you (whether you like it or not). My father never wanted that to happen. He left one year too early instead of one year too late. He has no regrets.”

You can find the rest of the article, if you are interested, on
     http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7250994/business-vs-personal

I think this is a good lesson and a reminder that school leadership is highly political. Now the politicians like to point at schools and state how awful public education is. At the same time, the popularity of schools has never dipped anywhere nearly as low as the most recently public opinion poll on Congress. And although there are people who propose bold changes to the system, we all must realize that public education in the United States is a political entity and subject to the same winds that blow through our political landscape.

1:1 Laptops are not about Increased Test Scores

"If we implement one-to-one computing, will our standardized test scores go up?" said many school board members when their respective schools were considering a laptop initiative for their students.

Unfortunately, the data is inconclusive. There are some studies that show gains, but some of these studies are minor or narrow. Meanwhile some other studies show no difference. The brightest hope for increased standardized test achievement is in student writing skills. Unfortunately, many writing assessments are subjective. And most national tests do not truly assess writing; it simply does not fit the bubble sheet answer format.

Our school is now in its second year of using one-to-one laptops in grades 4 through 12. I am convinced that laptops can grow standardized test scores. However, I do not believe this is the proper use for them. There are a number of quality software programs that provide students with extra practice that could increase their assessment scores. If a school was to use their laptops for intensive basic skills practice on a daily basis, I am of the opinion that test scores will improve significantly.

But there is a larger question: is this really the best use of expensive laptop computers? Can't the same aim be met if we simply immerse our students in reams of worksheets?

One-to-one laptops are about 21st Century Learning. We use them to promote research and critical thinking to increase higher order thinking skills among our students. We are trying to get our students collaborating with classmates and with students around the world. We want our students using creativity to solve problems. This is education that will prepare our students for the world ahead of them, and this is the way to use a valuable learning tool such as a laptop for each and every student.

There is Merit to Performance-based Pay for Teachers

Performance-based pay can change teacher performance in a school system. I have direct knowledge of a school that implemented a pay-for-performance system, and things changed.

Here's just one example: a teacher was disappointed in his pay raise and went into the principal to question it. The principal explained that the teacher was not actively participating in professional development. He was checking papers, inattentive, and largely disengaged whenever he was in attendance at school improvement activities. The teacher asked if he would fair better if he changed that. The principal replied positively, and the next year that teacher was a model participant in school improvement and professional development activities. The system worked.

Unfortunately, the system did not directly benefit student achievement as measured by standardized tests. All teachers are generally doing the best job they know how for their students regardless of their pay. They are not holding anything back until they get a bump in salary. Their duty is too important, and they know it.

However, the system that worked with the teacher mentioned above did not work with all. Another teacher asked why her raise was less than others, and it was explained to her that her habit of starting her teaching duties a full week after the students arrived in August was inhibiting her performance. She did not believe it, and she was sure it was unfair bias beyond her control that was holding her down.

And this leads into a big problem with performance-based pay. It is vulnerable to favoritism, cronyism, and politics. Teachers often perceive that some principals may have favorites on staff. Realistically, principals are humans who are receptive to friendships and kind gestures. There is also a valid danger that someone with political power within the school--maybe a relative on the school board--may receive more favorable reviews and better pay than others.

There is a vital key to ensuring that performance-based pay improves teacher performance in a school system. The pay system must be tied closely and specifically to the evaluation system, and the evaluation system must deal with very specific, objective performance standards. The more subjective the criteria, the more the system is open to bias, suspicions of favoritism, and failure.

The Price is Right for Education Technology

If you are waiting to see what evolves in technology before implementing a major technology initiative in your school, your wait is over.

Technology has shown that the pace of change accelerates; it does not stabilize. (Maybe it is better stated your wait is futile.)

Likewise, if you are waiting for the price to drop because it is too expensive, you can stop waiting.

The price has already fallen to the point that makes technology initiatives affordable for schools. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the falling cost of a gigabyte of storage as noted by Ivan Smith (Boing Boing by David Isenberg):

YEAR — Price of a Gigabyte
1981 — $300,000
1987 — $50,000
1990 — $10,000
1994 — $1000
1997 — $100
2000 — $10
2004 — $1
2010 — $0.10

So where is the price headed? A goal of industry is for computers to cost . . . wait for it . . . one dollar!

This means computers will be everywhere: carried on our persons, mounted into tools, installed in furniture, and sewn into the fabric of our garments. It will also make computers disposable. Of course we are not talking about computers with full monitors and keyboards (assuming keyboards continue to exist). We are referring to microcomputers with specific and limited functions.

A skeptic may doubt that one dollar computers are achievable. But consider the musical greeting card--the card you open and plays a popular tune or even sings to you. A single such card has as much computer power as existed in the world in the 1950's.

The point is that now is the time to invest in technology. The initial outlay for purchasing will be buoyed over time by the falling costs of subsequent additions and updates. This calls for a short-term expenditure rather than a long-term investment with significant, recurring costs.

Of course times are hard and budgets are stressed to the breaking point in a manner unprecedented in the last 70 years. Our nation's economy is a mess, but over the next few years it will rebuild. Now is the time to use this crisis to begin restructuring. Schools should begin by redesigning student-centered classrooms emphasizing inquiry learning. They should start training teachers in an instructional methodology facilitated by technology. This should lead to integrating technology into instruction. Schools should next pilot laptop learning in select classes, providing students with the research tools to facilitate inquiry learning. Finally schools should lay out a plan for full one-to-one implementation.

Though expensive, education technology is affordable; though futuristic, it is contemporary; though extraneous, it is essential. The time is now.

Six Ways Education Technology Must be More than Just Computers

Quickly, define technology. Do we know what technology is?

Is it computers? Or is it instant, wireless, world-wide communication? Or is it . . . you know, technology?

Well, we think we know it when we see it. But the use of the word technology has not always meant what it seems to today. The Roman Empire conquered their known world due largely to their superior technology. The Allies won the war with the help of their advanced technology. Yet there were no microchips involved.

When we struggle with definitions, we can always turn to Webster's Dictionary. It says technology is "the practice of any or all of the applied sciences that have practical value and/or industrial use."

This broad and vague definition is creating issues in my home state of Iowa as the state looks at how to fund technology in our public schools. A special revenue fund can be used to purchase a single unit of equipment or technology provided the cost is above a certain threshold. Opponents of technology for schools say that technology is equipment--count each device separately as a stand-alone unit. But others argue that a device cannot stand alone in this day and age; a unit of technology is an entire instructional concept with the computers, their connections, network, software, security, etc.

When desktop computers came to the forefront of office work, they increased efficiency and productivity with their word processing and calculating power. They initially operated independently. Now computers are connected around the world. Web 1.0 provided information and interesting sites to view. But Web 2.0 allows for on-line interaction globally. Internet applications and uses continue to explode.

Unfortunately, we are living in a time where some people are clinging to the notion that this technology stuff is a fad like citizen band radios or video arcades--eventually people will tire of it and move on. The detractors also argue that schools have been purchasing computers since the 1980's without making a significant difference in student achievement.

However, it is only now that technology has the power and interconnectedness to change from a sideline curriculum of keyboarding and computer basics to a new pedagogy of its own. Some of us are now trying to reform education using the power of modern technology to advance learning. These people recognize the following:

1. Education technology is devices certainly, but it is no longer the devices alone. Each device is now just a link on an enormous chain.
2. Technology is about networks--local, national, and global. And it is all the connective devices: the wires, the wireless, the hubs, the servers, the connections, the bandwidth--all the tools.
3. Education technology is information access. It is the Library of Congress and the world, the good and the bad, at the fingertips of our students,
4. Technology is connections and communications. It is not just finding sources. It is finding first-person interactions. It is also idea sharing and collaboration with people everywhere.
5. Technology in education is information creation and higher order thinking skills, providing students the opportunity to find the information, break it down, then synthesize it into something of their own making.
6. Finally, technology is human relationships. Some predicted that technology would isolate us and let our interpersonal skills atrophy. Instead, our students are touring the world, meeting other people, learning about other cultures, and learning about relationships.

Anyone who observed the recent regime change in Eqypt knows there was a fundamental difference in how the change took place as compared to any other time or place in human history. Communication technologies and social networking created the conduit for an entire nation to informally organize. It was not just about computers. It was about computers, connected with a world-wide network, joined with wireless communication, and these connections accepted and used by people everywhere. It is applied science with a practical value that will continue to change and evolve at a more rapid pace every year. Will schools keep up?

If you think technology is something more than just equipment, feel free to offer me a comment.

A Threat to Iowa Technology Initiatives

This is a special blog. It relates to State Auditor David Vaudt and his investigation into schools: whether or not they are spending their current technology funds properly, if new restrictions should be placed on the funds, and if schools should be required to pay back from other funds for tech-related expenses already incurred.

First a little history from my perspective. When technology first began to emerge as a clear and future force in public education, the Iowa Legislature created a special fund in the early 1990's strictly earmarked only for technology acquisition and tech-related uses. With this special funding stream, Iowa schools had few concerns about how to pay for this new classroom component that we knew would be the future of education. Iowa soon became a classroom technology leader. Combined with our fiber-optic classroom network that was providing instant interchange in schools across the state, we became the envy of the nation.

However, at the same time, other funds became tighter in Iowa schools. When our nation's economy was booming in the late 1990's, Iowa schools were being under-funded. Budgets were not permitted to grow. Iowa teacher pay fell further and further behind the national average. Funds were stretched as far as possible to cover the gaps. Then following the tragedy of September 11, 2001, our nation's economy tanked. Iowa's special technology fund for schools was cut. Schools that had already obligated all other funds elsewhere had trouble funding technology. Iowa fell behind in technology as schools limped along by using the Apple IIe's we had purchased in the early 1990's.

Another foresightful tool created by the Iowa Legislature was the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (abbreviated PPEL and pronounced PEP-pul). It created a fund from local property tax to be used for equipment purchases of over $5,000. Educators asked legislators if that minimum threshold could be lowered, and the Iowa Legislature responded positively by dropping the minimum to $1,500 which could be used for either a single piece of technology or "a technology system." Now this "system" language was key because we all recognized the power and the future of networking computers. Wiring might not cost $1,500, but if it was part of a system, that was O.K.

We were fine for a short while, but the price of technology continued to drop. Computers no longer cost more than$1,500 apiece. Schools had a dilemma. They could buy computers as part of a system, but they could not afford to buy a stand-alone computer for a single classroom. Educators again returned to the Legislature, and legislators again were supportive. They lowered the minimum limit again, this time to only $500.

Somehow in this last correction, the key words of using PPEL for "a technology system" was erroneously left out of the language. The rule allows $500 for a single piece of equipment.

Now this is a problem because we educators have continued our past practice and recognize that our technology is most powerful as part of a unified tech system. We have continued to spend these funds quite appropriately in this way.

Now a decade into the 21st Century, schools are beginning to implement what we have known for considerable time is the future of education, i.e. students carrying ubiquitous portable learning devices, currently in the form of laptop computers. A few leading schools are implementing one-to-one laptop learning initiatives. We are lease-purchasing a number of laptops for a fixed-price for each computer over a four-year period. Included in the per-computer price are the network connections, the wiring, the system servers, the operating systems and software that come pre-loaded on the laptops, training for the staff, and the consultants and technicians necessary for installation and implementation.

This month Auditor Vaudt began questioning how schools are spending their PPEL funds. While purchasing their laptops, schools are also acquiring these other devices and services. He questions if schools should continue to be allowed to implement laptops learning initiatives using PPEL funds. He also questions if schools already with laptop initiatives should be required to refund their PPEL funds from their general funds.

Here's the bottom line. Schools are following a past practice that has been acceptable for nearly two decades. School leaders and school boards are operating in full view of the public and with overwhelming support by our parents and patrons. Does it make sense that any school should only be allowed to purchase computers but not the software that makes them run, the infrastructure that allows them to connect, or the training for staff that makes them effective?

This is a serious threat to the future of education in Iowa. Iowa schools are being asked to get by with less funding this year and the next two years. And we should. Times are hard. But now is not the time to place more restrictions on school budgets. Technology is the future of our society and our 21st Century workplace. Technology literacy is a 21st Century skill both by common understanding as well as under Iowa Code. Our laws and our rules should be promoting and propagating the integration of technology into our classrooms, not setting up road blocks.

Whether it is by rule interpretation or legislative action, Iowa schools need to be allowed to use their technology funds for either a single piece of equipment or a "technology system."

1-to-1 Laptops are Changing Instruction

What if you were going to see a motion picture in 1931, but your local theater was only showing silent movies because it had not yet figured out how to operate the sound features for the new talking movies? As a customer, would you accept that level of service?

Flash forward eighty years. Students are sitting in a classroom, listening to a lecture, and watching the teacher reveal his notes on an overhead projector. Should these students accept this level of customer service?

One-to-one laptop computing is changing modern classrooms for the better because teachers cannot continue to maintain traditional methodology when their students can do a better job of teaching themselves.

In my last blog I mentioned some research findings that suggest that laptops can improve student achievement. Still the research is spotty. Schools that want to improve standardized test results should not look to one-to-one computing as a solution. However, that does not mean laptop learning is not making a difference in classrooms. Other research is suggesting other benefits, and they include the following:

• Bridging the digital divide between wealthier students with home computers and poorer students who cannot afford computers (Lemke & Martin, March 2004);
• Higher student motivation and engagement (Gulek & Demirtas, January 2005);
• Fewer behavior problems, and increased student attendance (Lemke & Martin, December 2003);
• Better class participation, and greater homework completion (Silvernail & Lane, February 2004);
• Computer trouble shooting skills for students (Fairman, 2004);
• Better parent involvement, interaction, and attendance at school, and greater technology literacy among parents (Lemke & Martin, May 2004); and
• Increased teacher recruitment, enthusiasm, and retention (Lemke & Martin, May 2004).

I have heard these findings confirmed by colleagues at schools that have implemented one-to-one laptop learning initiatives, and I have seen these borne out in my own school.

Moreover, one-to-one laptops are allowing students to learn and retain at higher levels. The difference laptops are making in learning can be explained using the Learning Pyramid from the National Training Laboratories in Bethel, Maine. The pyramid reveals how content retention is related to the methodology used by the teacher:

Average Retention Rates

• 5%       Lecture
• 10%     Reading
• 20%    Audio-Visual
• 30%    Demonstration
• 50%    Group Discussion
• 75%    Practice by Doing
• 90%    Teaching Others

Laptop learning changes the classroom dynamic from more traditional passive learning, i.e., lecture, reading, and audio-visuals, to the active learning of practice by doing and teaching others.

And it really does not matter if the teachers fully understand this. The students will demand this, . . . as good customers should.

How 1-to-1 Laptops Can Reform Education, Part I

First of all, any teacher who can be replaced by a machine had darn well better be, . . . and fast.

One-to-one computing in schools is not intended to be a solution. Technology will not reform education. A weak teacher will still be weak, even with powerful teaching tools. Laptop computers in the classroom do not automatically make a teacher better. None of these points have ever been argued as part of the conversation.

Admittedly, research is limited. It has only been within this decade that laptops were both powerful and affordable enough for schools to distribute them system-wide as part of a reform effort. Our best source is the state of Maine. Maine became the first state in the U.S. to issue laptop computers to every student in grades seven and eight. The Maine Learning Technology Initiative began with a vision of former Governor Angus King to prepare Maine’s students for a rapidly changing world. The theory was that a major transformation would happen only when student and teachers worked with technology on a one-to-one basis and that any other ratio would not produce the transformation everyone sought. The program began in September, 2002.

A study of student achievement in Maine conducted by Lemke and Martin in 2003 showed improved test scores in language arts, mathematics, and science. While one study is hardly conclusive, some smaller studies have also shown positive gains. For example, a study at Harvest Park Middle School in Pleasanton, California, showed that students with laptops score 6 to 13 percent higher in language arts and mathematics than peers without laptops (Gulek & Demirtas, January 2005).

Affecting the amount of data is the way instruction with computers is changing. In a more recent study from Maine, students who were taught to use animation and podcasts in the study of science “had a higher level of comprehension, a higher level of retention, and higher levels of engagement” (Berry & Wintle, 2009).

One of the greatest benefits may be in the teaching of writing skills. A recent study showed computer usage improved writing scores approximately 1/3 of a standard deviation. Twice as many students using laptops in the writing program met state proficiency standards (Silvernail, 2009).

This is just the first step: to integrate powerful teaching tools into the classroom. The real benefit lies in how these tools are utilized to change instruction. But that will have to wait for my next blog.

Put Technology in Classrooms but Not at the Expense of Kids

Many school leaders realize the world is changing with technology ubiquitous, and schools need to keep pace by providing learning environments rich with technological tools and on-line resources. But the conversation on the topic is increasingly difficult this year with school budgets under siege. Nearly every state in our union is laboring with how it can provide adequate funding for its schools.

Many recognize the significance of placing mobile research tools in the hands of students in a one-to-one, high-tech classroom environment. However, we struggle for how to do this when our funding is dwindling. In our rush to try to find a solution to these challenges, let us not forget that some of our students are suffering the worst during our nation's economic downturn.

Some schools, unable to raise the funds for one-to-one laptops, are looking at using the students' own cellular telephones in the classrooms. It seems that nearly every student has one, and sometimes those students whom you would least expect have the most sophisticated phones. But we cannot let these initial impressions confound us. Many families are struggling during this time. It is not a given that all students have cell phones and all can afford them. Some students stay very quiet because of their embarrassment that their families cannot afford such gadgets.

I believe firmly in the right of every child in the United States to a free public education. It is no longer free if there are daily user fees attached to devices the students must bring to class. There is a wide range of cell phones: from smart phones, to media phones where students pay data charges, down to track phones where students buy their minutes in advance and pay for every text message. Is it free if a student has to pay on a daily basis to participate in class?

Cell phones should be allowed in school. Our school allowed them early on, and our students have learned to use them appropriately. But cell phones are not the solution to our classroom technology needs.

Schools Need to Fix More than What is Broken

The U.S. system of public education is not broken. Not broken.

Our system provides the United States with the highest standard of living on Earth. The United Nations in November released its Human Development Report for 2010. The Human Development Index (HDI) places the United States well ahead of all the nations whose students may have scored higher than ours on standardized tests. Our nation is the envy of the world, and it is our system of public education that helped to create it.

There is an expression: "If it's not broken, don't fix it." I heard this as a boy and thought it clever, "That makes sense. Why do we try to fix things that don't need fixing?"

I now loathe the words. I have heard the expression as a continuous mantra from those who wish to maintain the status quo. We have a good system, yes. But it could be better. It must be made better.

We can do this by moving our schools into 21st Century learning institutions. We need to reduce our drop-out rate by individualizing instruction. We need to develop students who are both independent problem solvers and cooperative team players. We need to teach our students to teach themselves by utilizing Inquiry Learning and Active Learning. We need to foster the use of technology in achieving our educational objectives.

Most importantly and immediately, we need to get on with the work at hand. Yes, our budgets are handicapping us, but we must stop fixating on finances. The economic conditions are what they are. We must also remember we have seen good times too. We have to adapt our services to the resources at hand and realize that the world is changing. Schools must evolve and get better.

Our students need schools focused on the future of our world, not the present school budget. Our work of building a brighter tomorrow cannot be slowed by trying to maintain schools as we have known them or by using our financial resources as an excuse. This work is just too important.

1-to-1 Laptops Need Valid Reasons for Implementation

As the pedagogy of one-to-one laptop computers continues to grow at a geometric rate across the nation, two types of schools are emerging. The first type of school chooses to become a one-to-one laptop school for reasons which may include technology is the future of our world and our kids need to learn it, the school may be able to grow its enrollment with laptops for everyone, or other schools are going one-to-one so our school must also to keep pace.

The second type of school chooses laptops for their students because their teaching has advanced in the use of inquiry-based instruction, their classrooms are active learning centers, and they have shifted the center of gravity in their classrooms from the teacher at the front of the room to the students in the middle of the room. Laptops are the next natural progression as these schools develop their curriculum. These latter schools have reached a point  where they need to put powerful research tools into the hands of their kids in order to advance their instruction to the next higher level.

Technology is a siren song. We are attracted to the sounds, the action, and the information. We marvel at applications we never would have dreamed of a decade earlier. But technology only for the sake of technology is empty. It leads to accusations from the public that the students are distracted, they are wasting their time on games and chats, they are not learning the basics, or worse--the laptops rest in their bookbags while core instruction continues unchanged from years before.

Maybe you have heard the stories: the students rush into the classroom, pop open their laptops, and log on. Then the teacher enters and says, "Put those things away; we have work to do." It's happened.

One-to-one laptop initiatives should not be decided top down. It is imperative the teachers are part of the decision. The teachers must be on board from planning through implementation. There should also be an understanding of how instruction must change once the initiative is underway.

So lash yourselves to the mast. Resist the siren song of technology for technology's sake. And when ready, lay a clear course for a destination as a 21st Century school.