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“Most successful teachers learn from a combination of resources, including local communities, virtual communities, and research,” writes Kristen Swanson in her new book Professional Learning in the Digital Age: The Educator’s Guide to User-Generated Learning. In other words, educators learn from the communities to which their are connected, and having the tools to make those connections are truly vital in the digital age. That’s where Swanson’s book comes in. Packed in only 109 pages, she gives readers the process and tools to become a connected educator in the 21st century, and engage in “user-generated learning.” Professional Learning in the Digital Age is a must read for educators who want to fine-tune the process of building and maintaining professional learning networks. And, for those have yet to venture out and begin the process of becoming a connected educator, this book gives them clear straightforward advice on how to do it, and a Tool Repository at the back of the book with which to get started.



Swanson begins by defining what is meant by “user-generated learning” which she defines as “learning acquired through active curation, reflection, and collaboration to a self-selected collaborative space.” In other words, user-generated learning is a very deliberate process of carrying out three specific actions that can transform an educator into a connected one, and by default transform his or her educational practice. These three actions that bring about the kinds of learning fostered through online connections include:

• Curating: Process or action of carefully collecting relevant resources. In this case, these are resources entirely associated with our professional practice. There are online tools that aid in the process of curating the content and information on which learning is based.
• Reflecting: Process or action of making sense of this newly curated information and determining what it all means for professional practice. Reflecting is vital to assimilating our new learning. Tools such as blogging assist educators in reflection.
• Contributing: This is the final process of action of user-generated learning. It consists of giving back to the community of learners to which we are now connected. Contribution fosters connections.

In simple terms, engaging in these activities result in fostering and growing as a connected educator. Swanson gives readers a powerful formula for fostering “user-generated learning” through connectedness, capitalizing on one of the most powerful professional development tools educators have in the 21st century.
Professional Learning in the Digital Age: The Educator’s Guide to User-Generated Learning, Eye on Education,  is powerful-succinct guide for all educators to learn 21st century style.

According to an article in the Winter edition of Journal of Research on Technology in Education, the results of a recent study by Stacy Wegrzyn, Doug Hearrington, Tim Martin, and Adriane B. Randolph had interesting results that may have an impact on how we help students with ADHD engage and focus in the classroom. According to their study, the “daily use of brain games can help strengthen focusing ability and executive functioning in adolescents with ADHD.”

In this study, students were asked to play “brain games” for a minimum of 20 minutes each morning before school for 5 weeks. Their level of engagement was then measured at three points during the day using electroencephalogram, parent and teacher reports, researcher observations, and participant self-reports.

The findings in this study suggest that we can use Nintendo’s DS software called Brain Age as a potential “nonpharmaceutical alternative to ADHD medication. It also suggests it might be a more affordable alternative than medications as well. The study cautions though, “Not every child will see an improvement through the use of brain games.”

The study suggests the following implications for 21st century educational practice:

• Brain games, such as the Nintendo DS Brain Age software, as a form of treatment could be kept within the school or even within the classroom.
• Teachers could allow struggling students to play the games each morning during homeroom, lunchtime, or recess.
• Teachers could then evaluate the usefulness of the games in increasing each student’s ability to focus.
• Unlike medication suggestions, teachers could try using the games without liability concerns, even if the games do not help increase the student’s engagement.

For more information on this study be sure to check out the current Winter edition of Journal of Research on Technology in Education. For information on Nintendo’s DS Brain Age game software, check out their web site here.

Ultimately, this is a perfect example of personalizing education for students. One can help but wonder whether these same kinds of tools can help all students focus and engage more in their learning.

Now that 45 states (and 3 territories) have adopted the Common Core Standards, edu-preneurs and opportunists have gone into overdrive, churning out tons of materials, programs, and trainings to help schools and school districts implement these standards. Not a day goes by that I don't receive 15 or so emails from companies and individuals offering their wares and promising successful and complete implementation of the Common Core Standards.

 By all this hype, one would be tempted to think that the whole idea of having national standards was more about providing enterprising individuals and other entrepreneurs another opportunity to make millions from the public coffers.  Is the Common Core just another opportunity for making money, or is it a 21st century policy decision? Or, is it a continuation of a outdated education paradigm that refuses to die? Could it be that the Common Core adoption is nothing more than a "wrong bet" as education researcher and author Yong Zhao calls it?

In his latest book, World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students, Zhao writes:

"The traditional education paradigm may have worked before but it is no longer adequate for the changed world. The efforts to develop a common curriculum, nationally and internationally, are simply working to perfect an outdated paradigm. The outcomes are precisely the opposite of the talents we need for the new era. It is the wrong bet for our children's future."

The thought that "If we just have the right standards, the right tests, then our students will achieve still blindly sees students as products to be developed. As long as we continue to view education as a process by which we bring students up to "standard" and not to their true potential, we are doomed to remain in the same cycle of education reform we've been in since the 1950s. Over and over, the political mantra has been, "We've got to raise educational standards!" Yet, little really every changes in our American education system. We are, in a word, hung up on a core assumption that education is something done to students rather than something they engage in.

I would like to hope that somehow the Common Core is an answer to our educational problems, but my own experience and knowledge tells me that it very well could be the "wrong bet" as Zhao calls it. Here's where some of my own skepticism lies:

• There is no research that says having common standards is going to somehow better meet the needs of 21st century students.Some will say "Common sense tells you that having common standards will raise the achievement of all," but then again, "It was common sense that told us the world was flat too."
• Common standards by its very nature assumes students have common capabilities, abilities and talents to some degree. Reality tells us something much different. Students have all manner of abilities and talents, and being able capitalize on individual talents and abilities rather than trying to standardize each child is what education should be about which is not what the Common Standards movement is about.
• The Common Core Standards movement is at its core more about having "standards for comparison purposes" than it is about truly meeting the individual needs of students. When politicians, policy-makers, and education leaders are more interested in developing a system that allows them to say "Our education system is better than yours," the needs of individual students suffer. The assumption that "we need to be able to compare students" is perhaps faulty to begin with. Students, and human beings, are different, and can't be considered cogs in a system.
• We are truly deceived if we think having the bragging rights of saying "US students lead the world in test scores" is going cause companies to suddenly relocate jobs and businesses in the states. Businesses move to other countries for economic reasons: they move to where labor is cheapest, period. To argue that "test-score bragging rights" will suddenly turn around our economy ignores the reality that businesses want cheaper employees, not necessarily more educated ones.

Last night, the #edchat topic was, "How should teachers deal with colleagues who are comfortable with 19th century and punitive measures for non-compliant students?" Judging by the responses, many teachers either felt they could gently prod this colleague to changing his or her practice. Others did not see this their responsibility at all. They saw it as the responsibility of the administrator.

At first glance, I would agree that the administrator does have the responsibility to address the issue of teachers using outdated practices. However, I think the real solution is a bit more complicated and can be captured with another question: How can a teacher engaged in outdated pedagogy and practice possibly exist in a true 21st century school? Should the school environment not be so innovative and challenging that such teaching is impossible? Perhaps the real problem is that we have been fooling ourselves into thinking our school is a "21st Century School" when it's not. Just maybe our school systemically allows teachers to continue do what they've always done and avoid growing personally and professionally. 

As long as you have a school, school district, and school system that allows people to use "outdated methodology in instruction and educational practice" such practices are going to exist. In other fields such as medicine, obsolete practice is rooted out by a culture that values innovation and pushes out obsolescence. Why can't schools foster that same kind of culture?

What would a school or school district that has a culture that makes obsolete educational practice impossible look like? What are the operating principles? Here are some ideas to start with.

1. A strong expectation of personal and professional growth permeates the school and school district environment. Everyone, beginning with leadership, are lifelong learners, and their every action is focused to that end. There's an attitude of perpetual learning and professional development surrounding everything that is done.

2. The school and school district culture values risk-taking more than playing it safe. Valuing risk-taking takes courage from leadership and everyone else. It means accepting failure as part of learning. Leadership that values risk-taking can't ask others to take risks if they themselves aren't willing to do so.

3. Leadership in the school includes more than the principal. When the leadership includes strong teacher leadership, it is difficult for those not growing professionally to exist. Teacher leadership means there are peers pushing those teachers to develop professionally.

4. Collaboration among staff is the norm. When issues and problems and challenges are viewed as "our issues/problems/challenges" then everyone is expected to be a part of the solution. This means those who are hanging on to outdated practice find it more difficult to do so. Their colleagues are pushing them to take ownership of the school's future and they can't continue to exist in their tiny isolated compartment within the school.

5. There's a strong sense of entrepreneurship among staff regarding the school. They feel that it is "their school." Staff who feel this aren't just provided a token opportunity to give feedback on School Improvement Plans. They have a say in the direction and focus of the school because it is genuinely their school too. Teachers engaged in obsolete practice can't continue to operate in an obsolete manner because colleagues push them to do better.

So, in answer to last night's #edchat question, "How should teachers deal with colleagues who are comfortable with 19th century methods and punitive measures for non-compliant students?" I submit that the answer isn't just a question of what the teacher should do or what the principal should do. It is a systemic problem that can only be addressed by creating places that make obsolete educational practices impossible. It's a question addressed by creating a school or school district culture that will not tolerate obsolete educational practice.

With all the talk about having a “world-class education system” from politicians and policymakers, one would think that our schools would be undergoing major reforms designed to create exactly the kinds of schools that foster 21st century learning and education. Too often though, I suspect this isn't the case, because these individuals define “world-class” as simply “having the best test scores in the world” because in their next breath they lament just how poorly American students compare with other international students on tests like the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). To many of these individuals, this equation seems to apply:

WORLD CLASS EDUCATION SYSTEM = HAVING HIGHEST TEST SCORES IN WORLD

Without a doubt, many of these politicians and policymakers define “world-class” in ways that clearly create “world-class schools” better fitted for the Industrial age where factories and assembly lines were the ultimate destinations of students. These so-called “world class education systems” are, to put it bluntly, schools that churn out “good test scores.”  In a word, a world-class education, in their eyes,  is still about an education done to students rather than something in which they engage in.

Because of this view of “world-class education systems” our politicians and policy-makers, we continue to tweak the edges of our education system instead of really finding substantial ways to reform our education system.

• We develop new standards and new tests, thinking that if only the hurdles were higher and the measurements tougher, then we would have a “world-class education system.
• We extend the school day, thinking that only if we subjected our students with more of the same for longer periods of time, we would have a world class education system.
• We add technology to our schools to help us teach like we have always have done, instead of allowing the technology to help us rethink learning and teaching.
• We toughen or change graduation standards every four years when new at the whim of the next politician in office, whose thinking is that if we only change the ingredients of our graduation mixture, we would have a world class education system. 

In a word, we continue the same cycles of reform and deform that began with the Sputnik declarations in the 1950s and 1960s, because we can’t let go of a fundamental deeply held belief that education is something done to students rather than something they engage in.

If we were to be honest with ourselves and sincerely asked the question, “What does a truly world class education system for the 21st century look like?” we need to look further than higher test scores.

• A “world-class” education system is about educating students to tackle 21st century issues, not about achievement test scores.
• A “world-class” education system engages students in authentic learning experiences, not standardized learning experiences.
• A “world class” education system actively engages students in their own learning, and does not have them sit passively in classrooms, waiting for the content to be delivered to them.

In his latest book, World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students, Yong Zhao provides a thought-provoking list of indicators of a world-class education system. According to him,  we don’t need 21st century schools that churn out “acceptable” test scores like the 20th century schools. We need 21st century schools that foster creativity, entrepreneurial thinking, and innovation. Here are “Eight Indicators of World-Class Schools” adapted and paraphrased from Zhao’s book.

1. A world class education system gives students the “right and opportunity” to participate in school governance, and in constructing the physical, social, and cognitive school environment. Zhao points out the dictatorial nature of our current education system. It seeks to dictate exactly what every student should learn, without regard to her interests or talents.  Students aren't provided opportunities to have any say in their own learning. The whole idea of “educating students” is something done to them, and they are passive participants. In a world-class education system they have a say in their own learning. They participate in the development and construction of their own learning and places of learning. In a word, they are empowered to take ownership of their own learning.

2. A world class education capitalizes on student engagement by giving students a curriculum that is broad and flexible. The curriculum gives students the freedom to pursue their own interests and the development of their own personal talents, rather than creating standardized workers capable of all performing the same tasks. Our current education still seeks to narrow the curriculum and make it rigid. The belief that there are a list of skills and talents every student should have drives a curriculum narrowly focused on skills and talents subject to standardized testing. A world-class education system has a broad, flexible curriculum that can be individually tailored to the interests, talents, and abilities of each student.

3. A world class education system provides personal support for each of its students. Our traditional schools were and still are still set up to deliver an assembly-line education in a standardized manner. A true world-class education system provides what Zhao calls sufficient and accessible “emotional, social, and cognitive support for students so they can personalize their own learning.” All students are connected to at least one significant adult in the building. A world-class education system personalizes each student’s education through a solid system of support.

4. A world class education system engages students in authentic learning experiences that ask them to create authentic products of learning. In our current traditional system of education, students still spend a great deal of their learning time engaged in inauthentic activities involving worksheets, textbooks, and standardized tests. Instead, students in a world-class education system are engaged in learning where student work is defined as authentic and real-world. A world-class education system engages students in 21st century learning tasks that are authentic and personally meaningful.

5. A world class education system engages students in a sustained and disciplined process of learning. In the old traditional education system, students basically complete their work. The teacher grades it and gives it back. In a world-class education system, students are engaged in a learning process that asks them to develop, review, evaluate and revise. In this kind of learning, students are clearly engaged in more that finding right answers and giving them to the teacher. They are engaged in a world-class education that asks them develop, evaluate, revise, and promote products of their learning.

6. A world class education system capitalizes on the local strengths of its students, teachers. A world class education system takes advantage of the locale of its schools, and it effectively taps into community resources. The schools' teaching reflects the strengths of its teaching staff. The system provides ways for both teachers and students to exploit their own talents and interests.  A world class education system seeks not to standardize, but to make the most of both its students and teachers in all learning.

7. A world class education system has a world orientation. This means simply, that the school operates from a global perspective, not the narrow perspective of local community or even country. World-class schools seek international partnerships, and students are engaged in learning involving global issues. In addition, students are engaged in frequent interactions with students from other countries. In other words, a world-class education system moves students and their learning beyond the walls of their classrooms and even the borders of their country.

8. A world class education system develops the global competence in its students. Global competence refers to the ability of students to interact with others from different cultures. This means in world-class schools, foreign languages and cultural learning are important. It means students have opportunities to interact with these foreign cultures either through the use of technology or through field trips. In other words, a world-class education system provides opportunities for students to experience other countries and cultures in engaging and relevant ways.

Having a world-class education system is more than having one where decision makers can have bragging rights to the highest scores in the world. Ultimately, a world-class education system focuses on student engagement, student choice, personalization, authentic learning, global perspective, and global competence. Unfortunately, these are things that often make education messy.

In 2012, the powerful inertia to keep schools and school districts the same continues to dampen and  neutralize any efforts to innovate and change how schools operate. We are still on a march to obsolescence.

A recent example of this inertia in North Carolina, was when school districts tried to innovate with changing their school calendars. School districts shifted their calendars to better align their semester schedules with student needs. But it was the powerful tourism lobby, Save Our Summers,  that then pushed lawmakers to set legal limits when schools can start and end because, as their web site says, they “seek to establish, protect and maintain a more traditional school calendar.” Maintaining a “traditional” school calendar was not about helping schools do a better job teaching kids, it was mostly about preservation of the status quo, and preserving the school calendar they enjoyed while attending Industrial Age schools, not to mention profit.

These kind of efforts are simply attempts to keep the same Industrial Age schools of the previous century. These forces of inertia are making our schools obsolete simply because too many of them are made up of people who hold tightly to a nostalgic view of an ideal standard school that never really existed, except in the minds of the few of them for which schools worked. As Frank Kelly, Ted McCain and Ian Jukes write in their book, Teaching the Digital Generation: No More Cookie-Cutter High Schools,

“The most important issue facing schools today is the reluctance of those in control of education to let go of what they are used to, whatever their role in the system.”

The people and forces at work to preserve our education system as it is are powerful and strong. There are the politicians who see nothing wrong with the school systems that provided them with opportunities, so they continue to make laws that prop up the Industrial Age schools and districts they know. Policymakers are often beholden to politicians because they are left with trying to create policy that follows the letter of the law and regulations developed by politicians. Teachers, who very often excelled under a 20th century, standardized, Industrial Age education, are reluctant to change teaching methodology because, after all, “It worked for me.” School and district administrators and staff are more engaged in carrying the dictates of policy from on high, and often do not see their place as “One to question why.” Then there are parents, who very often had positive school experiences when they were in school, so they want the exact same schools for their children.

Is it any wonder with all these forces at work, that most reform occurs at the edges of our school system as Milton Chen describes in his book Education Nation: Six Leading Edges of Innovation in Our Schools? Is it any wonder we spend most of our time tweaking schedules, lengthening school days, implementing new sets of standards and new testing, and trying to force technology to help us educate students as we always have done? And yet our drop out rates only improve marginally, student measures are down. Our schools are still on the road to obsolescence, because we are still engaged in practices that preserve 20th century Industrial age schooling.

Here’s a list of some of those practices that are really moving our schools to obsolescence:

• We still design and build schools structurally the way they always have been. While I certainly do not advocate building the open school buildings of the 60s and 70s and causing that fiasco, today, it seems little thought seems to go in the designs of our school buildings. We are still building structures containing distinct classrooms to house students in assembly-line manner to push them through the grades, like products. Perhaps we should be building schools with flexible learning spaces with walls easily removed and reconfigured to meet the needs of students, rather than fitting students to the needs of the building. Perhaps we shouldn’t even build high schools all with the same departmental classroom groupings. Maybe to meet the needs of students, classrooms are arranged by areas of interest or study, with core content teachers working within these instead of departments. Or, maybe one high school need only have art studios, music studios, or an acting theater rather than a football stadium and science labs. Such a school would be structured to meet the needs of art students, rather than STEM or athletics. In other words, we need to design school buildings to meet the needs of all 21st century students, rather than trying to fit students in predetermined school structures that have no flexibility

• In many of our schools, we still have teachers engaged in teaching the same ways they have always taught and were taught. The argument that lecture is a perfectly fine method of teaching because it worked for me is a step toward obsolescence. We need to stop trying to fit students to teaching and instruction, and instead, fit teaching and instruction to the needs of students. Students need to have the options of learning traditionally if they wish, but they also need to be able to learn through project-based or problem-based learning if that fits their needs. They need to be able to engage in online learning and internships if those fit their learning needs. They need to be able to engage in the kinds of learning that fits them, instead of schools trying to force students to learn in ways that do not work for them.

• We still are too often engaged in finding ways to get technology to help us educate as we always have instead of using technology to reinvent teaching and learning. Students typing 5 paragraph essays on computers hardly qualifies as technology integration. Having teachers use PowerPoint to enhance their lectures hardly makes for 21st century teaching. Using the Internet solely as an information source, instead of a tool to engage in global learning and connecting, hardly means using it for 21st century learning. Our schools still plod toward obsolescence because we still think of technology as a means to do the things we’ve always done better, rather than using it to reinvent what we are able to do.

• We still sacrifice kids to uphold policy and procedure rather than developing policy and procedures to meet the needs of kids. How many times do we prevent a student from taking a higher level course simply because they do not have the requisite “seat time” in another class, especially when we know that student is perfectly capable to being successful in that class? How many times do we keep students in our buildings all day simply because our regulations say they have to be in the building 7.5 hours, when it would be to their advantage to spend some time working at the animal shelter? How many times have we had to purchase “state adopted” textbooks and materials because the rules only allowed us to purchase those items, when other materials would work better for our kids? Our march toward obsolescence also includes a hard-headed unwillingness to enforce and abide by policy, procedures, and regulations even though they are not always in the best interest of kids.

• We are hard at work standardizing our schools, our curriculums, our tests, and even our instructional materials. In public education, there is a strong force that says anomalies and differences are bad. We push for schools that are same, from how they are arranged to even how their web pages are designed. Our government pushes for a standardized curriculum for all in spite of the fact that we know all students do not learn the same way, and don’t even have the same interests. We tell ourselves,  “We’re going to make scientists and mathematicians of them whether they like or not.” We give standardized tests, so that we can “measure” both students and educators and see if we have “added any value” to our students as they have progressed through our Industrial Age assembly line schools. We have policymakers pushing for e-textbooks and tablets that merely make books electronic and encourage the same kinds of learning we’ve always done. Never mind that some students do not learn best from text whether it is electronic or paper. Our efforts to standardize everything demonstrates that Industrial Age thinking still has a tenacious hold on our schools in the march toward obsolescence.

• We are still caught thinking of school as something “done to kids” between the hours of 8 AM and 3 PM. We force teenagers into classrooms at 7:30 AM when all the research in the world, and common sense, says their intelligent thinking capacities don’t really kick in until much later in the morning. We allows bus schedules and lunch schedules drive when teaching and learning occurs instead of fitting those things to teaching and learning. We allow sports practices to dictate when school ends for all high school students, when there are some who would excel under a class schedule that extends into the early evening. We march toward obsolescence because we refuse to fundamentally rethink the school day.

I do not advocate change for change’s sake. It is just as easy to get caught up in the thinking that we have to change something because it needs changing. Many of the tweaks and changes being made to our schools are the product of this kind of thinking. Yet, our schools continue to march toward obsolescence because we are not willing to fundamentally let got of our own nostalgic view of schools and school districts. The key to moving away from obsolescence to innovation and invention is perhaps in not holding anything sacred. We must be willing question everything about our schools and school districts. By trying to find ways to preserve and better what has clearly not worked for all students in the past is a sure way to continue our march to obsolescence.

To paraphrase Marc Prensky from his collection of essays From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom: Hopeful Essays for 21st Century Learning: “The easiest, executable solution to our education problems today “is to change what goes on in our classrooms.” We need to move from teacher-centered and teacher dominated learning models to more personal, student-centered learning models. In the process, we will do what Prensky calls “Making Education Real” for our students.

Enough of the rhetoric and cheap talk. What does it really mean to make education and learning real in the classroom? In his essay, Prensky offers “5 Things Teachers Can Do at the Beginning of the Year to Make Education Real for Their Students.” I am going to modify that just a bit a here to capture what I think are the “5 Things Teachers Can Do to Make Learning Real in Their Classrooms.”

• Get to know your students. And this does not mean their proficiency levels and past test scores. That information is important, but if you want to make learning real for your students in your classroom, you better connect with them. Connecting means learning about what they are passionate about. It means learning who they are as persons. It means connecting with them on a personal level. For learning to be real in your classroom, you have to see students as real people, with real passionate interests and needs. No room for standardization here.
• Reduce the amount of time you spend “telling” in your classroom and engage students in more “partnering activities” that allow students to pursue their own passions. Granted, it is a challenge when there are “Adopted Standards” waiting to be tested, but so many students don’t learn at all, much less deeply with lecture and “sit-n-get” modes of instruction. As Prensky notes, “Capitalize on students’ 21st century abilities to learn on their own.” Give them opportunities to engage in the kind of learning they are wired to do instead of forcing them to learn in an incompatible manner.
• Facilitate learning by guiding students through their learning. Teachers can help students focus on what’s important and what’s next. They can help them make the most of 21st century learning tools to engage in content and skills. This means stepping out from the front of the classroom and standing beside or sitting with students as they learn. It means letting goal of being the center of the classroom.
• Foster global connections with peers and experts. Teachers should assist students in connecting with other students globally. They should help students connect with experts that can help them learn. In effect, teachers should help students create their own Professional Learning Networks (PLNs). Then, they should help students care for and grow that network according to their learning needs.
• Motivate students by allowing them to use their 21st century devices in their learning. This means setting aside the impulse to block the use of cell phones in the classroom. This means providing students with wireless access in the school building in the form of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives and 1:1 Technology initiatives. It means engaging students in the use of social media and other technologies rather than blocking them on school networks. We can make learning real by simply allowing students to use the devices of learning they use outside our school walls.

If we really want to change education and learning for our students, let’s change what is happening in classrooms, and our buildings. Let’s make education real for our students by moving from “Telling” classrooms to “Partnering” classrooms that enable students to engage in learning.

“The educational improvement efforts now in place are aimed at bringing back the education that American offered students in the 20th century (with some technological enhancements,” From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom: Hopeful Essays for 21st Century Learning by Marc Prensky

Do Americans really have the stomach to “reform their schools?” Looking at the list of reforms in vogue today, one can only wonder whether reform is really the goal, or as Prensky points out, “Reform efforts are more about bringing back the education system that was,” instead of creating an education system that truly meets the needs of 21st century students. We continue to strangle our education system with accountability and testing, standardization, and general neglect, and yet, we are surprised that our students are still dropping out and still not achieving.

If we truly want to change education in our country, then perhaps we really need what Sir Ken Robinson calls an “education revolution” instead of reform. The truth is, we’ve been reforming education for years. When I left college for my first teaching job in the late 80s, the dust was still flying from frantic reform efforts to address the “issues” identified in the Reagan administration’s report A Nation at Risk. Career ladder programs were attempted to provide teachers “pay based on merit.” Standardization of education was afoot through standards implementation at the state level. Politicians were hung up on national test scores that signified “the educational apocalypse on the horizon.” And, the predominate mantra was, “Throwing money at our educational problems won’t fix them.” These ideas offer absolutely nothing revolutionary. They, like many of our reforms now, simply tweak an education system that is in need of a revolution. As Prensky points out, “However well meaning those who proposed and fund today’s educational reforms may be, their aim is generally to improve something that is obsolete.”

I actually think Prensky is being too kind. Those pushing some of the reforms today are not “well-meaning at all.” They have political and cultural agendas that actually do not want to see public schools thrive. They want to see an end to all public schools, or at least a marginalized public school system that is much weaker and irrelevant. These are the same individuals and groups that turn our schools into places where culture wars are fought and political points are scored.

The truth is, to revolutionize the education our students are getting, there are three things school leaders can focus on immediately, and none of them are magical or new. According to Marc Prensky, “Lots of money is being spent on trying to fix the educational ‘system.’ But what the reformers have haven’t yet understood is that it’s not the ‘system’ that we need to get right; it’s the education the system provides.” Let’s focus on the education our children are receiving and not the “system.” Here’s 3 things for considerations for starters:

• Make learning authentic. Let’s engage our students in the kinds of learning that is based in the real world. Project-based learning and problem-based learning ask students to engage in real learning tasks. Even making our classrooms more real-world like makes learning more authentic. Getting students out of rows of desks and at tables or even seated in huddles on the hallway floors. There’s nothing authentic about sitting in desks carefully placed in rows, or working on questions in at the conclusion of each chapter in a textbook. Teachers standing forth lecturing and directing all student learning is also inauthentic learning. Teachers still practicing in this manner, and principals/school leaders who support this kind of teaching are guilty of malpractice. It takes authentic learning experiences to revolution the learning and education of our students.
• Foster a school culture of support and personalization. Most schools I’ve worked in are still hard at work forcing students to fit into them rather than changing the school to fit the needs of its students. Schools can focus on the education of children by simply becoming flexible agents that bend and twist to meet the needs of students. For example, schedules do not have to be same every year. Why can’t the class schedule be revised to fit students’ needs instead of fitting students to a class schedule?  Schools must become personal places where all students are known for who they are, not by simply whether they scored “proficient on the latest test,” or by their student number. A school that truly personalizes education for students will not allow students to slip away into the anonymity of numbers. They know their students for who they, and they adapt and find ways to support and personalize education for all students.
• Allow students to engage in using 21st century tools. Far too many schools, and their administrators, are still fighting to keep technology out. If we want to revolutionize the education our children are receiving, then let’s give them the technological tools they need to access the wealth of information online. Let’s give them opportunities to use those same tools to create content, and connect with others globally. School administrators can begin revolutionizing the education students in their schools by embracing Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, 1:1 technology initiatives, and by becoming technology users themselves. Still school administrators need to be cautious and remember: the success of the education the students are receiving through technology is not measured by the number of iPads or laptops purchased. The success is found in the classrooms where teachers engage students in using these devices, not as tools “assist them to teach as they’ve always done.” But as a means to challenge and disrupt both teaching and learning.

Reform efforts abound. Just ask any politician and I’m sure you will immediately get a long list of “Things-I’m-gonna-do-to-reform-education.” Most often, this only translates into trying to turn schools into what they once were, or into what that individual would like them to be. As school leaders, we can revolutionize the education our children receive if we focus on that education and not the system. If we simply emphasize the importance of authentic learning, foster a culture of support and personalization, and give students 21st century learning experiences with 21st century tools, the education revolution will begin in our schools.

Yesterday, North Carolina Gubernatorial candidate Pat McCroy released his plan to reform education. Basically, that plan suffers from a total lack of new ideas and innovation and simply carries the Republican Party line of trying to privatize public education. Here’s the basic components of McCroy’s ed reform package taken from a document on his website entitled “A Passion for Education: The McCroy Plan for North Carolina Schools.”

• Educational Choice: McCroy describes his version of choice as: 1) Choice between a college ready diploma and a career ready diploma, 2) Expanding virtual classes for public, private and homeschooled students, 3) Streamlining the charter school approval process so that its faster.
• Use tests to determine whether 3rd graders should be promoted and a proficiency test for all ninth graders: McCroy would use the results of tests third graders take to determine whether they would be promoted to fourth grade or not. He would also implement some kind of proficiency test in reading and mathematics for ninth graders. Those not passing would take remedial courses, but he does not say that they would not be promoted.
• Merit Pay for teachers: McCroy would change the pay system for teachers in North Carolina to “reward teachers for the job they do instead of the number of years they teach.”
• Grading Schools: McCroy would use what he calls “unbiased,objective exams” in reading and mathematics to grade schools. Schools would be graded for both proficiency and growth according to McCroy’s plans. In his school grading scheme, half of a school’s grade would be based on proficiency levels, and the other half would be based on growth.

So what is wrong the McCroy Plan for North Carolina Schools? Here’s some things for starters.

• It lacks any specificity at all. It isn’t a plan at all. It is at best a policy statement. I would shudder to think that anyone can reduce their plans for education reform to only three pages. That indicates either a superficial, incomplete understanding of the troubles facing public schools in North Carolina, or it indicates an acceptance of a boilerplate reform plan from special interests and political parties.
• McCroy’s plan relies on measures that have been tried and failed or that fly in the face of research. North Carolina has tried to stop social promotion before and discovered that they just didn’t want to base a student’s future on the results of one test of dubious reliability and validity. Placing such weight on state testing also violates the state’s testing code of ethics. Also, North Carolina has tried the old high school proficiency test idea for many years with the old competency tests high schoolers had to take and pass to graduate. That ended because it wasn’t working. North Carolina even tried a form of merit pay by giving teachers bonuses based on test scores, but our politicians canned that when budget times got tight. Then there’s the research cited by authors like Daniel Pink and Dan Ariely that point out how futile merit pay is any way.  Grading schools was tried under No Child Left Behind, and we all know how successful that’s been for the past decade.
• It follows the standard boilerplate Republican platform that ultimately seeks to privatize public education. One thing you can’t accuse McCroy of is straying from his Republican handlers. But because of that, his entire education plan is a “status quo” plan. There’s not an ounce of originality or thought put into it. It is more about furthering a political agenda than genuinely reforming schools. If it were, there would be innovative and thoughtful ideas in it, not a rehashing of what Republican governors are doing around the country already.
• McCroy’s plan is still caught in 19th and 20th century education models. He is still hung up on classifying students by superficial grade levels, and by using “tests” to determine the “defectiveness” of products (students). Those not making the grade are recycled back through the process again. This plan still at its core believes you can grade and classify students by groups. It sees a system of education that pushes students through like factory parts.
• McCroy’s plan keeps the faith in the power of standardized tests to accurately and infallibly measure the progress of students. McCroy’s thinking about assessment is still caught in the 19th and 20th century model of assessment. He would take our state back to bubble sheets that determine the individual fates of students, in spite of the fact that we’ve had a decade of that under No Child Left Behind and it hasn’t worked. The “unbiased, objective exams he calls for are the tools of schools that are test-prep factories, not schools that are educating students for the 21st century.
• McCroy leaves a lot of things unsaid in his education plan. For example, how is he going to pay for merit pay schemes when our state has been unable to give anyone a raise in four years? I know he says they’ll look for places to trim in order to pay for it, but he forgets our budgets have been cut for the last few years. He also says nothing of school vouchers, which I know he supports. When politician presents a plan for something that is so vague and unspecific, you can’t help but wonder what he is hiding.

For once, I just wish a candidate for state or federal office would step away from the party line and develop a truly innovative education agenda and plan instead of relying on party apparatus to write that plan. As a twenty-plus year educator, I have to say both political parties are guilty of listening to special interests, political parties, and think tanks funded by individuals with overt or covert agendas. The “status quo” that McCroy says is so unacceptable will only be perpetuated by his unoriginal, stale, partisan education agenda that he outlines in this plan.