IALA » Policy

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.

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.

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.

School Reformers Missing Crucial Ingredient

Wayne Jennings — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 18:12:53 +0000

Marc Prensky, originator of the terms digital native and digital immigrant, writes that today’s education reformers miss the most important ingredient for education change, namely the curriculum. He states, reformers speak of the importance of teachers and principals, methods of instruction, length of the day and year, teacher preparation and other factors but assume the conventional curriculum. Huge omission! The conventional curriculum has remained unchanged for 100 years and must be transformed to meet 21st century societal needs, personal passions of students and new conceptions about learning.

This powerful article deserves careful study to make significant improvement in schooling. I highly recommend it. Prensky makes the article available for widespread distribution. His website contains much other useful information.

Alternative Certification

Wayne Jennings — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:11:59 +0000

Attempts at circumventing conventional licensing have led to the availability of alternative certification, that is programs for becoming licensed to teach or administer without going through the traditional sequence. A valuable resource for examining this route is www.educationdegree.com and then clicking on Alternative Certification.

This continually updated website of 1,700 colleges and school districts contains valuable time-saving information including B.A, M.A and Ph.D. programs. One example is Teach for America. The website also references a critical review and research on alternative certification.

The professional literature contains much commentary about the quality of teacher training, much of it critical of the selection of candidates and training programs leading to certification. Legislatures in a number of states have initiated new routes to certification, hence the value of the Education Degree website for this fast changing field.

Our IALA website lists colleges for preparing people to work in alternative schools. Click on Alternative Training Programs.

Provocative Conceptions About Learning

Wayne Jennings — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 04:00:16 +0000

TED brings the world’s leaders in various field: Sugata Mitra invented the “hole in the wall” project with astonishing learning results, then continued the experiment around the world with the same impact. It can’t help but cause us to question conventional ideas about the ability of children to learn. His 17 minute talk at TED captured in the video Child-Driven Education will entertain, enlighten and cause one to puzzle about unfettered human learning.

Children of the Code tackles issues of learning to read (breaking the code) with a wealth of the world’s expertise and resources. The difficulties are described in an amazing video 7 minute What’s So Difficult? and the attendant results for many children of ”mind shame,” a crippling long term affliction for school achievement.

A third brief video is from the fresh mind of Ken Robinson who draws engagingly as he talks about the need for change.

Charter School Funding: Bugaboo Factor

Wayne Jennings — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 02:37:46 +0000

100s of charter school studies have assessed the viability of the movement particularly on student achievement as measured by standardized tests. One study shows charter schools students do better than comparison groups, another shows they are about the same, another shows charter school students do poorer than comparison groups.

Two major criticisms of these studies have been made aside from their conflicting findings. One regards a definition of charter schools. Are we talking about innovative charter schools vs. those following traditional approaches, charter schools in their first few years vs. well-established ones, charter schools with mostly beginning teachers, schools serving mostly at-risk students, etc.? One may as well say parochial schools achieve better than public schools; that would dismissed as making an incomplete and unwarranted comparison.

The second major criticism of charter school studies regards a level playing field on finances. Repeated studies by Ball State University show that in all states, charter schools receive fewer revenues and in many states substantially fewer revenues–on the order of 20 percent less revenue. This factor also makes student achievement comparisons suspect and unfortunately is rarely mentioned or factored in. The study, Charter School Funding: Inequity Persists updates an earlier study which also found a considerable difference in the resources available to charter schools as compared to district schools in the same locales.

People want to know about this major reform effort, charter schools and its degree of success. Once again, the complexity of valid research rears its annoying head. I, for one, want to see charter schools actually depart from conventional practices. That is the primary purpose of charter school statutes! My observation and experience with charter schools from the earliest years show that the majority of charter schools reconstitute the conventional school. A small percentage, perhaps 30 percent, (my estimate) pioneer different approaches to education. Those interesting schools have much to teach us about learning and the results for producing responsible citizenship, productive careers and lifelong learning. How about research along these lines rather than the repeated flawed and unhelpful existing studies?

Alternatives, the National Scene

Wayne Jennings — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:10:45 +0000

Dan Daly, executive director of IALA wrote recently of the organization’s efforts to impact state and national policy:

This past June, IALA hosted the Tri-State Alternatives Leadership Summit in Bloomington and formed The IALA Coalition for Innovative Education. Leaders from the following ten organizations participated; IALA, MN Association of Alternative Programs, IA Association of Alternative Education, WI Charter School Association, MN Association of Charter Schools, Association of Recovery Schools, Coalition for Charter School Management, Education Evolving, EdVisions Schools and MN Online Learning Alliance. David Bly, former MAAP President and current member of the MN House of Representatives also attended.

The purpose was to find common issues, explore ways to collaborate and impact state and federal legislation/policy. Organizations in the Coalition are currently ratifying the IALA Position Paper and the following Components of Innovative Education:

A learning program that is “different” from traditional schools and/or “focused” on a specific theme
A student-centered learning program using a variety of measures to assess student performance
Staff at the site able to make decisions about all aspects of the school and control finances
Staff at the site accountable for student performance results and fiscal responsibility
Small size

The Coalition will add organizations from throughout the country to give learning alternatives a fuller voice. Contact Dan Daly at dddaly@comcast.net or 612-716-5620.

Gardner, Advocate for Educational Pluralism

Wayne Jennings — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 21:52:00 +0000

Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard and well known for his books including Multiple Intelligences and Five Minds for the Future, writes of the importance of a variety of educational programs to fit different students. In a recent article, he writes that after studying various approaches such as Reggio Emilia (a program he particularly likes), Montessori, Waldorf, traditional and other types of schools he is more convinced than ever of the importance of “educational pluralism.”

Obvious as it is, schools have insufficiently acted upon the fact that all children do not learn the same. Hence, the need for a variety of educational programs to meet the diverse needs of students. He states, ” The lessons I have learned over the decades are: (1) to be ever open to new and powerful ways of educating and (2) to shun those who block the roads of individualized pedagogy as well as those who seek to impose a uniform way of presenting material.”

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