IALA

Institute for Democratic Education in America

Wayne Jennings — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 02:54:24 +0000

A fairly new organization the, Institute for Democratic Education in America identifies critical areas for learning that “equip every human being to participate fully in a healthy democracy.” Their website urges reinventing education strategically, collaboratively, and sustainably. It offers examples, links, definitions, invitations to become involved and a host of resources. Clearly, an up-and-coming organization bound to have an impact on public education.

School Choice Necessary for Education

Wayne Jennings — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 02:02:58 +0000

The Brown Center on Education at Brookings published a system for ranking school districts on how much choice of educational programs is afforded children. They argue that options are necessary and valuable in an article and short video. Their rank of 25 large cities on 13 criteria ranges from grades B to D. Their booklet Expanding Choice in Elementary and Secondary Education argues that the government should as a matter of policy provide choices for every child.

IALA espouses this policy as its core mission.

Reshaping National Assessment Policy

Wayne Jennings — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:26:04 +0000

Harold Berlak, an experienced educator writes: “Dozens of professional educational associations corporate lobbies, think tanks, have offered proposals for reauthorizing ESEA/ NCLB. I summarize and offer commentary on key proposals of three prominent organizations….” They are The Forum on Educational Accountability, Broader Bolder Approach to Education (an offshoot of Economic Policy Institute), Forum for Education and Democracy. All three issued their reports prior to Obama’s election and were “written with an eye to how Congress should go about reauthorizing NCLB, and repairing or undoing the educational disaster inflicted by ESEA 2001, aka No Child Left Behind.” Berlak’s brief readable critique offers sensible and politically feasible suggestions for Congress that on its present course is unlikely to yield much in the area of accountability and testing. His paper can be requested from hberlak@yahoo.com.

National and State Alternative Education Conferences

Wayne Jennings — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 05:22:03 +0000

Mark your calendar for any of the following conferences about alternatives of interest to you or colleagues.

The first annual School Choice and Reform Academic Conference will be held January 14-17, 2012 at Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The Texas Association for Alternative Education will hold its 22nd annual conference February 2-3, 2012o the in Austin.

The National Alternative Education Association will hold its annual conference February 8-10, 2012 in Nashville.

The Minnesota Association of Alternative Programs will hold its 29th annual conference Feb. 15-17, 2012 in Rochester, MN.

The National At-Risk Education Network will hold its annual conference Feb. 21-23, 2012 in Panama City, FL.

The Washington Association for Learning Alternatives will hold its 37th annual conference March 1-3, 2012 in Vancouver, Washington.

The International Democratic Education Conference will hold its 20th annual conference March 24-28, 2012 in Caguas, Puerto Rico.

The California Continuation Education Association will hold its annual conference April 26-29, 2012 in North Hollywood.

The Magnet Schools of America will hold its 30th annual conference May 18-21, 2012 in Dallas.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools will hold its annual conference June 19-22, 2012: in Minneapolis.

The Alternative Education Resource Organization AERO will hold its annual conference August 1-5, 2012 in Portland, OR.

Social and Emotional Learning Impact

Wayne Jennings — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:52:06 +0000

CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning has promoted a thorough study, “The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social and Emotional Learning: A Meta-Analysis of School-Based Universal Interventions,” on the impact on social and emotional learning. Encompassing 213 studies involving 270,000 students, the authors find significant impacts from practices not only on academic learning but also empathy, decision-making skills, conflict resolution skills, health, school behavior, high-risk behavior, work ethic, and ultimate school success.

CASEL promotes the development of five interrelated sets of cognitive, affective, and behavioral competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. The result: A shift from being predominantly controlled by external factors to acting with internalized beliefs and values, caring and concern for others, making good decisions, and taking responsibility for one’s choices and behaviors.

Online Learning Resources

Wayne Jennings — Fri, 27 May 2011 04:21:49 +0000

Online learning, virtual schools, cyber schools, blended learning terms apply to the fastest growing area of learning alternatives, both K-12 and higher education. The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) a nonprofit representing 3,800 members tracks advocacy, networking, professional growth and research areas. They provide or list webinars, conferences and news. A new website OnlineSchools.com aims to be a central source of information with descriptions, rationale, lists of schools, resources and more. Some states have online learning associations as further sources of information.

Besides full time programs, blended learning programs are increasingly found in almost all high schools in the nation and now spreading to middle and elementary schools. This describes students taking regular courses along with one or more online courses for credit endorsed by their school. A new 178 page report “The Rise of Blended Learning: Profiles of Emerging Models” by the Innosight Institute describes 40 blended learning organizations and 48 different models.

Leaders Affirm the Importance of Choice

Wayne Jennings — Wed, 18 May 2011 00:17:51 +0000

The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) and the US Department of Education assembled leaders from 20 of the largest school district for a discussion of providing choices. Their report Reforming Districts Through Choice, Autonomy, Equity, and Accountability: An Overview of the Voluntary Public School Choice Directors Meeting strongly affirmed the importance of providing learning alternatives of various kinds including open enrollment, magnet schools and charter schools for all students to better meet the needs and preferences of parents and students. School districts need to take leadership for a seamless combination of choices even if it means relinquishing levels of control.

From IALA’s standpoint, this is an overdue but welcome affirmation of our position that all students should have a choice of distinctively different programs.

Whyville, Home to 6 Million Students

Wayne Jennings — Tue, 03 May 2011 21:36:01 +0000

The developer in 1999 of Whyville, Dr. James Bower gives a delightful talk entitled, The Death of Textbooks, Emergence of Games in a little over an hour webinar and describes the fascination young students have with creating an alter ego (avatar) and a whole new world to shape and manipulate. Whyville now attracts 5,000 teachers and some 6.8 million kids as young as age 4 with 78% girls, even some senior citizens. Use of the program develops all sorts of skills and knowledge normally taught in classrooms via teaching and textbooks. This astonishing program doesn’t replace schooling but augments learning through deep engagement. This is a likely future part of education and has considerable support from foundations and businesses.

Take the time with this webinar to consider the impact of this rapidly growing segment of computer use. The implications may blow your paradigms.

Pathways to Prosperity

Wayne Jennings — Tue, 03 May 2011 21:00:42 +0000

Pathways to Prosperity Project based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education released a major new report examining the reasons for our failure to prepare so many young adults, and advancing an exciting vision for how the United States might regain the leadership in educational attainment it held for over a century. Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century contends that our national strategy for education and youth development has been too narrowly focused on an academic, classroom-based approach.

This pathways system would be based on three essential elements. The first is the development of a broader vision of school reform that embraces multiple pathways to help young people successfully navigate the journey from adolescence to adulthood. The report contends that at present, we place far too much emphasis on a single pathway to success: attending and graduating from a four-year college. Yet only 30 percent of young adults successfully complete this preferred pathway. Meanwhile, even in the second decade of the 21st century, most jobs do not require a bachelor’s. The report notes that while the United States is expected to create 47 million jobs in the 10-year period ending in 2018, only a third of these jobs will require a bachelor’s or higher degree. See reference for other points.

How To Videos: Extraordinary Resource

Wayne Jennings — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 02:18:28 +0000

EdVisions Schools have made their Design Essentials videos available to all. These are profoundly helpful in seeing how a variety of educational practices are conducted in project-based learning and non-course based schools or others moving toward student-centered learning. Here are examples from the category Self-Directed, Project-Based Learning:

Self-directed, project-based learning primary focus; driven by constructivist pedagogy (Adults explain; Students explain)
Personalized Learning Plan (PLP) for all students emphasizing student needs and interests (view video)
Personalized work space for each student; Internet access (view video)
Technology infused environment; technology as a tool
Individual/group projects complemented by multiple teaching approaches based on student needs and interests (view video)
Achievement demonstrated publicly; highest work place standards are quality goal (view video)
All students prepared for post-secondary education, workplace and active citizenship (view video)
All students and staff engage in quiet reading every day (view video)

Other major categories with numerous videos include:

Authentic Assessment
Teacher Ownership/Democratic Governance
Small Learning Communities

The Design Elements professional contributions shows student-centered learning in action, the best I have seen! Thanks to the award winning New Country High School and Avalon School students and staff for their exemplary videos.

Rise of K–12 Blended Learning

Wayne Jennings — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 02:57:22 +0000

A recent report The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning about online learning begins with this startling statement:

“Online learning is sweeping across America. In the year 2000, roughly 45,000 K–12 students took an online course. In 2009, more than 3 million K–12 students did. What was originally a distance learning phenomenon no longer is. Most of the growth is occurring in blended-learning environments, in which students learn online in an adult-supervised environment at least part of the time. As this happens, online learning has the potential to transform America’s education system by serving as the backbone of a system that offers more personalized learning approaches for all students.”

Blended learning is defined as any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace. The report describes six types of blended learnings commonly used in schools.

New Schools

Wayne Jennings — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 01:57:40 +0000

A Radically Different World

If you think our future will require better schools, you’re wrong.

The future of education calls for entirely new kinds of learning environments.

If you think we will need better teachers, you’re wrong.

Tomorrow’s learners will need guides who take on fundamentally different roles.

As every dimension of our world evolves so rapidly, the education challenges of tomorrow will require solutions that go far beyond today’s answers.

These comments come from: http://www.futureofed.org/. Other exciting sources of education futuristic activitiy are Knowledge Works and New Tech Network and 2020 Forecast.

100 Years War Against Learning

Wayne Jennings — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 04:46:32 +0000

Dr. Don Glines has poured his energy, extensive experience and knowledge of research about learning into this extraordinary article, “100 Years Against Learning.” He likens the actual 100 Years War to the more than 100 years during which schools have ignored learning principles. He asks why do we still have, for example, seventh graders. He says there is no such thing. Any examination of existing seventh graders finds a range on academic skills of at least eight years and physical development of four years. To simply assume that schools can assemble a group of seventh graders and batch process them makes no sense given the huge differences in development, temperament, motivation, interests, and abilities.

He asks why would a decision about entering kindergarten hinge on age. A student born one minute before midnight on the cutoff date may be far ahead of the student born one minute after the cutoff date. Glines details numerous instances of such incongruities and offers remedies.

Using the war metaphor, he calls upon all of us to refuse continuation of learning atrocities. This is a powerful piece by one of the world’s leading educational thinkers and practitioners.

Urgent to: Educational Alternatives Supporters

Wayne Jennings — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 03:27:20 +0000

The International Association for Learning Alternatives (IALA) has shifted its focus from conferences to policy advocacy with a Position Paper outlining broad concepts to advance educational alternatives. The National Association for Alternative Education (NAEA) has recently endorsed the IALA Position Paper as have several state associations. NAEA is a growing membership organization that holds an excellent annual conference and has partnered with the Association for High School Innovation (AHSI) in this endeavor. AHSI, formerly the Gates-funded Alternative High School Initiative, is a leading force for innovative educational options.

This year’s conference, February 9 – 12, 2011 in Nashville, will feature a President’s Business Meeting for State & National Leadership, similar to the Leadership Forum at past IALA conferences. We enthusiastically support this initiative and encourage organization leaders to attend and urge members to join NAEA. (membership is free!) Dr. Ray Morley of Iowa will represent IALA at the meeting of alternative organizational leaders.

Wayne Jennings, IALA Board Chair
Ray Morley, Vice-Chair
Dan Daly, Secretary/Treasurer

Ultimate Parent Empowerment

Wayne Jennings — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:01:08 +0000

California’s “parent trigger ” law enacted in 2010 permits parents with a 51% vote in a failing school to either close the school, replace the school’s administrators, replace the school’s teachers, or convert the school into a charter. Making the news, parents at McKinley Elementary School in Compton California voted 60% to transform their school into a charter school. Earlier this year a majority of parents at Mount Gleason Middle School in Sunland-Tujunga, CA voted to transform their school. The outcomes of these votes are not yet known, may be challenged, and considered revolutionary.

Nonetheless, other states (GA, IA, IN, MA, NJ, NC, ND, WV to date) are considering similar parent trigger laws as a procedure for dealing with “failing” (low scoring) schools. Fasten your seat belts, educators!