Who will want to go into teaching?

In Wisconsin, the legislature has sent a message to the teachers of the state. We don't care.

Unfortunately, teachers are quite used to seeing the "we don't care" message coming from students, parents, and even administrators. Usually, teachers don't complain about their lot in life. They tend to be rule followers who know that they set an example for behavior. It was somewhat surprising to see the teachers protesting so aggressively in Madison to protest Governor Scott Walker's attempt to kill the education union. What put them over the edge?

Perhaps it was the fact that teachers in Wisconsin average $50,000 per year. A single income household with a teacher in charge would be $18,000 below the national average for a household. The Wisconsin legislature wants teachers to contribute more to their health care and pension costs. This will cut the amount they take home even more. Perhaps the Wisconsin teachers will be eligible for public assistance. If the average salary for teachers is $50,000, the salary for beginning teachers must be near the poverty level.

People in college who consider teaching for a career may not think about it very long. Why should they? Why would you go into a profession that may not allow one to live a decent lifestyle? Does the public expect teachers to live single in boarding houses? If so, who will want to become a teacher?

Education: Lowering Disorder in the System

The previous post discussed Improving the Odds: Raising the Class, a book that identified two components of the education system that need to be addressed for long-term improvement of the education system. The first issue that must be addressed is to improve the education process that occurs in the classroom. The lessons delivered to students must be improved. The second issue is to control disorder or entropy that disrupts the delivery of the lessons.

These two factors are the primary focal points that must be addressed to obtain systematic change. If America is truly serious about improving education, then improving the product delivered by education has to be a priority. The current system cannot and will not improve because it has no way to effectively insure either better lessons or the conditions that lead to better learning. Until the system learns to deal with these issues effectively, make sure that your kids have a good teacher; it is the only barrier between your child and mediocrity.

Education Reform: Two things that matter.

When writing Improving the Odds: Raising the Class, the book looked at long-term factors that would affect public education. The two factors are: 1. better curriculum delivered to the classroom; and 2. lowering the entropy or disorder to the education process. What is clear regarding most education reform efforts is how little they address either of these key issues.

The United States does not have a coherent system of putting forth the best lessons into the classroom. This is not the fault of the teachers, unions, site administrators, but of the system itself. There simply is no real system to collect information about what lessons work best in classrooms. What teachers try to do is to present lessons the best way they can. What if medicine worked the same way?

Medicine has developed methods for analyzing and treating patient to improve their conditions. Individual doctors do not go into the office and come up with novel approaches to treating diseases. Doctors learn the best techniques that are delivered to the health system by researchers in the field. In fact the skill that doctors have is not related to making up diagnoses on the fly, the skill is related to knowing how best to apply what the system of medicine has learned.

If teachers want to be considered "professionals," then the school system must create a system to train teachers and insure that each one follows the best educational practices. The second factor that the education system must address is removing entropy or disorder from the education system, a factor that will be discussed in the next post.

Let's evaluate the politicians based on today's economy...

Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin wants to change the way that teachers are evaluated. He wants student test scores to be part of the teacher evaluation process. He talks about tracking the progress of students from kindergarten through graduation (for the 75% who make it). The governor told students:

"You are coming along at a time where the world is becoming increasingly competitive and the education that we provide has to be even better than it ever was in the past."

Hey Jim, what does the "the world is becoming increasingly competitive" mean? Haven't the laws of survival of the fittest been in effect for thousands of years? What hasn't happened is a standard of life in America that allows someone without a college education to maintain a good lifestyle. According to graduation statistics, our country is educating more people to a higher degree than at any time in the country's history. Obviously, teachers must be doing a terrible job. So let's get rid of teachers whose students don't do well. There is a problem with this.

What is the incentive for students who are tested to do well? This is a good question. Since there are no incentives in the testing process, students can tank on the test without any repercussions. The teacher being evaluated could do an excellent job and be chastised for the student's lack of effort. Is this fair? Let's apply the same standard to a politician.

Since the state coffers of most states are bare, let's blame all the governors. The governors will blame the economy and the state legislators who are responsible for the budget. Are governors to blame for the poor economy? Not really. Can teachers be held responsible if they teach kids that are poorer, less able, and less enthused about education? Apparently the answer is, "Yes" if governor Doyle is asked.

The problem with this approach is that education is a process. Students do not fail in a day, nor does an economy get goofed up by a single day. How does evaluating students after the fact help the students learn? It doesn't. Looking at the current economic problems will also be meaningless unless lessons are applied to processes going forward. The lesson learned must be put into the system of education. For any system to improve, it must learn from itself. Both education and economic systems require that good processes be in place. As the economic catastrophe showed us, measuring performance after the fact is usually too late.

The education system must help the teachers identify the best lessons. It is the lessons that make up the process of learning. The book "Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change" discusses the general impotence of the top-down approach to education reform. Using the methods of Dr. Edward Deming, the book discusses a method for improving the education system by improving the process of education.

The process of education needs revision. We all agree on this point. How will a threat to base teacher evaluations on student performance change what has already occurred? Will such a threat really change the practices of mostly tenured teachers who are protected by unions? The answer is obvious. Improvements are needed in the process, not the outcome.

Common Assessment is the Right Thing to Do...

Many of the things that the United States Department of Education will be throwing stimulus money at education, but one thing that Education Secretary Arne Duncan proposes is right on the mark; common assessments for student. There is no reason for 50 states to have staffs that must duplicate the work to create tests for students. Not only do the tests cost money, but they also stop states from being compared to each other.

If Duncan gets his way and a common test is actually implemented, perhaps the states can address common standards for students. To create 50 bureaucracies to punch out standards is another waste of resources. There may have been a time when there were regional differences that made certain programs (agriculture in Iowa for example) more relevant, but the need and look of schools is rather uniform. Why put the extra expense and time into re-writing curriculum across the country?

Hopefully, Arne Duncan will be able to adopt a common education standard. It is one of the things called for in "Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change" by Rodney Larson. It calls for change in the education system that is based on continuously improving education at the classroom level.

Quality

In education, it is often difficult to value the contributions of individuals to the education process. Yet, people on a campus know whether or not tend to know whether a person is good at what they do. Robert Pirsig’s book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", examined quality issues as they pertained to life. Quality is something people recognize, but it has an intangible quality. People just understand quality when they see and can compare it to a less qualified standard. So it is with personnel.

I’ve written a book called "Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change" that shows that the “system” that makes up education doesn’t do enough to improve the process of education. The current system of education often implores teachers to do more, to do it better, but doesn’t provide any real tools or guidance of how it should be done. Many teachers merely hope the administrator will not impede their teaching efforts.

There are administrators, however, that make a positive difference in the education process because they understand that what happens in a classroom matters. It is rare that people who work “downtown” in school district offices ever return to a school site. However, it wasn’t a surprise to see Cliff Weaver say good-bye to the San Jacinto district office to open a new school.

Those who had served under Mr. Weaver knew that he possessed the capacity to find and deliver quality. As an administrator in San Jacinto, Mr. Weaver had already earned the “Administrator of the Year” award for his efforts in his new setting. Yet in k-12 education, quality can only go as far as the students one serves. It wasn’t surprising to see him move back toward a place where he’d make a difference.

Those of us who have served with Mr. Weaver know what his new employees will now experience. It was nice to get up in the morning and arrive at work and feel that you are on a quest. There will be changes, and you may not know exactly where you’re going, but you’ll feel that you’re destination is certain… you’ll be moving toward quality.

Learning online may be better,... well, maybe.

There was a recent post here that reported that on-line students (mostly in college) had performed better than students who were taught in the traditional classroom. Before anyone gets all charged up about effectiveness of on-line programs, one should recognize that the data were collected for people who were able to finish the class.

The beauty of statistics is that they give validity to the improbable and plausibility to the impossible. While there are reasons why on-line students might do better when tested than their classroom counterparts, one must also examine the population that completes a class versus one that completes an on-line class. It may be that there is a higher attrition rate for the on-line class, or perhaps the on-line learners may have higher skills than their classroom counterparts. This is not meant to negate the study that showed on-line studies to be superior, but to show that perhaps the superiority was skewed. Better information is necessary.

Then again, the on-line option might be the best way to go. There needs to be a system to analyze what works best. We're a country that loves freedom and self-initiative, but academic freedom is a bit of a crock when it comes to a classroom setting. As Bill Gates said with reference to problems with education, "It is the system." Bill was right. Unfortunately, we don't have the best system to make sure we're using what works the best. Until we have a means to find what works best with students, we might as well have Paris Hilton as the Secretary of Education. While not a role model, at least no one will take her seriously while she sells the bag of goods being sold by Arne Duncan.

Arne Duncan: Same old promises for education

Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan recently gave the American education system a "B" grade in an article ($5 Billion bet on education). An article that quotes Duncan, "A $5 billion bet on Education," points out that the United States' students fail to graduate on-time about 25% of the time and that the country ranks 18th out of 36 industrialized countries in education. Secretary Duncan thinks that with the backing of Obama's stimulus money, he said "With unprecedented resources and unprecedented reform, I think we have a fundamental and historic breakthrough." One has to wonder what planet Mr. Duncan is on.

The "reform" that Duncan has proposed: improving teacher quality; higher standards; overhauling low-performing schools; and better tracking of student performance were all part of the Bush education plan. How is Mr. Duncan's plan supposed to evoke a historic breakthrough when there are no fundamental new ideas to base change.

There are about 2.5 million teachers in the United States and we've just completed summer break. How is the improvement of teacher quality supposed to occur? Is education supposed to improve because teachers are getting better? How? Are teachers being taught better; are they smarter? What is the change among teachers that will bring about a "breakthrough." Higher standards is a stupid idea. Let's set the standard as "Every child must learn Calculus" before graduating." Is that a high enough standard? The problem is that is that it will not happen. Setting hihger standards does not mean that change what happens in the classroom. It's good to overhaul poor schools, but what is the "newer and better" system that replaces the poor school? Finally, a tracking system is good, but unless there is a plan to keep parents and students appraised of their progress, this too can be a moot point. What Duncan needs is a coherent plan to improve the system.

Fundamental changes in the classroom will occur when the quality of instruction in the classroom occurs. At present, there is no comprehensive vehicle for improving instruction in classrooms. What we have is a new Secretary of Education promising to escape the pull of gravity without a vehicle to escape. Education will not improve using the same methods. "Improving the Odds: raising the class" describes the fundamental flaw of the education system to be the system itself. We do not have effective ways to transfer information in a classroom setting. Until we do, it will be the same promises for education.

The Gates Foundation - Cash for Clunkers in Education?

Over the last few days, several school districts including the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PA), Omaha (NE), and Hillsborough (FL) have been salivating over getting grant money from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to improve schools. They are using the good old method of incentives. They are trying out the idea of merit pay since their foray into funding charter schools didn't work as well as hoped. They are trying the idea out in charter schools in California as well. This does beg the question: Will providing merit be the answer to education's ills?

If Gates is correct on this matter, it will imply that the carrot (merit pay) will alter teacher performance and therefore, student performance. Will the promise of merit pay change the way teachers approach their jobs? In Hillsborough, they are training 200 "master teachers" to give evaluations to their peers and a person's pay could be determined by the evaluation. Thirty percent of a teacher's evaluation will be done by the master teacher and principal evaluation and test scores will apparently be figured into the equation. A novel idea will allow teachers to "jump up" in the salary schedule based on the outcomes of the evaluation and student performances. People can jump up on the salary schedule and earn a lot more money. I wonder if this change in status is permanent or year-to-year? In any case, it allows teachers to make more money.

The thing that makes this interesting is that success will mean that teachers were "dogging it." This program, apparently, is based purely on market incentives. There is some element of the Hawthorne effect in play here, so test scores might be increased due higher levels of attention and appreciation for what teachers do (by the evaluators), but over the course of a year, such effects shouldn't be that great. If nothing else changes (lessons, curriculum, books, facilities), the factor measured will be the incentive offered to teachers. If successful, what this study would imply is that teachers could do more, but are not. If paid better, they would try harder to teach the students.

The implications are that the free market will change education. The Gates Foundation has tried to demonstrate the power of free market forces in charter schools, and having (at best) mixed results there, has elected to try anther free market idea - cash incentives. This is an effort to get teachers to somehow teach harder. Somehow, the quest for gold will change how the teacher approaches his or her job, and they will be better teachers. In some ways, this is like the Cash for Clunkers program that allows people to trade in their old cars to stimulate the economy and clean the air. Here, The Gates Foundation is giving the money and keeping the same teachers. If Gates has it right, then the teachers could have done a better job teaching the students, but didn't due to the lack of a financial incentive. Most taxpayers and parents will not like the idea that teachers were mailing in their effort if scores increase a great deal.

Dr. Edward Deming was a management guru who said that people who worked in a well managed system did a good job. It isn't about the money, but the system. The Gates Foundation is giving the idea of cash incentives a try. The government enacted "Cash for Clunkers" to stimulate auto spending and reduce pollution. The incentives of the program were clear; a clear exchange. The stimulous programs offered to teachers imply that teachers are not doing their best. It is amazing that Bill Gates, who said the problem with public education is "the system" seems totally clueless about how to approach the problem.

On-line students outperform students in classroom...

In a recent New York Times article, students (primarily college level) who learned on-line outperformed students who were taught in a traditional classroom. Barbara Means who headed the SRI study said that:

“The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing — it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction."

Indeed, the classroom students were considered to be the "mean" and scored at the 50th percentile while the on-line students scored at the 59th percentile. Who would believe that such results were possible? Actually, if the curriculum is specialized for an on-line class, one would think that the on-line experience can actually offer significant advantages over traditional lecture classes. The first advantage to a well-thought out on-line class is that it can be continuously improved from year-to-year and can provide immediate access to additional resources to the student. The second advantage is that notes for a class are on the computer, thus a student doesn't have to "take notes" in class and risk missing vital information from an instructor. The third advantage is that an online class can be accessed from any location with an online computer link at any time.

My book, Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change (Rowman and Littlefield), states that to improve education, we must improve the quality of lessons delivered by the classroom teacher. Our current system of education has no means for long-term improvement of the product. Teachers do not know what techniques work best in the classroom. This is because classroom teachers do not have time to perform studies to compare what they are presenting. It is the education system's job to measure the techniques that work best and to make sure the techniques are employed in the classroom. Thus, it is not surprising that on-line students do better than those in the classroom. It is entirely consistent with the premise of my book.

As with any product, the education of a student is going to depend on the quality of the lessons received. Unfortunately, while k-12 education systems quibble over school size, tougher standards, uniforms, and gender issues, the one thing that isn't mentioned is finding the best way to deliver lessons to children. They should. Apparently, the colleges should also concern themselves with the quality of classroom instruction, or they may find themselves out of work.

As the title of my book suggests, one must "raise the class" if improvement is going to succeed. If not, the students in the class turn their attention to Twitter, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, or features of the new PS3 slim. With the advent of computer, we do not have a captive audience. We must find ways to improve the deliver of the lesson if schools are to improve...

Brilliance and then ....

It is nearly the time for school to start. As a classroom teacher (well, I teach in an independent study program), the last days of summer leave me longing. Today, I'm looking at studies that discuss neurobiology. The brain is such a fascinating subject. Researchers are finally making progress toward understanding how the brain develops in the embryo. The results are exciting. The studies are being done using molecular studies of the brain and by directly viewing the brain in real-time studies. While all this is being done to help medical science, it is rather disheartening to think of the level of most education research.

What exactly should education research do? One would hope that it would help teachers and administrators improve the process of education. For those who believe the current system actually accomplishes this, I suggest you read Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change by Rodney Larson. What the education system needs to do is to figure out the best ways to present lessons to maximize teaching. It isn't being done. So, while the academic world is being brightened by work that explores the core of humanity, education comes back into session.

How much is education actually respected. Well, I notice that Tony Danza is considering a reality show in Philadelphia. That's nice. The City of Brotherly Love will have Michael Vick helping to run the team and Tony Danza in the classroom. That's a lot of reality, but it isn't very inspirational. How about a reality show with Rafe Esquith, a fifth grade teacher in Los Angeles. If you don't know who Mr. Esquith is, that is a shame. Watch The Hobart Shakespearians if you want to see something inspirational.

We're all in this together...

When Bill Gates decided to put the power of a computer in everyone's hands, I wonder if he had any idea how consuming the technology would be to future generations of kids. Due to the computer, kids growing up today have more information available to them than at any time in history. However, if one looks at the top search terms over the last seven days, the terms are Facebook, Lyrics, Youtube, Yahoo, and MySpace ("you" and "my" were also terms for those struggling to spell Youtube or MySpace). With the exception of the term "lyrics," the rest of the terms are all directly related to computer related activities.

As the 2009-10 school year gets under way, in some ways the computer has not merely become a tool, but also a crutch for people. People use the computer for many things and are instantly updated on the trivia of the world. That is perhaps the problem with computers from an education perspective. Students want information instantly, and trudging though the process of learning isn't compatible to the computer generation. Some things take a lot of time to learn, and people have to develop skills that allow them to do more than put search terms into a computer.
Learning the basic skills such as writing, math, and application of information to the world (science) is tough. However, it is also rewarding.

American students are learning to be Twittered, Iphoned, and Facebooked so that they don't think about the future or even the present. They are thinking about looking at their electronic device in case they "miss" something. A friend asking "What's up," or that would be too taxing on time, so they would use abbreviations. It isn't just the high school group, it happens on colleges as well. As most older people know, one of the great things about going to college is having a group of people your own age, at the prime of life, who you can meet. Walking through the local university last year, I was amazed to see a class let out and a hundred kids streamed out. None of them were talking to each other, they had all whipped out their cell phones so they could discuss how boring their class or to find out if they'd missed anything in the previous hour.

There they were, all streaming out of class, ignoring the opportunity to get to know each other face-to-face. It was an appalling site. We used to think of people that behaved in that way as geeks, but I guess we're all becoming geeks in a way. The geeks I used to know were in their own world and their own thoughts. The technology geek now is consumed by thoughts of what might have happened in the last minute, and seems to have little thought of the future.

I don't know what the future holds for this country. Each generation looks at the kids that follow them and wonder if the world will continue; it does. However, it seems that as technology permeates the landscape, and instant gratification is measured in minutes and seconds, something has been lost. Obviously, we've all gained from the advantage of the computer, but perhaps there are some virtues that are lost. Life doesn't always entertain us, and sometimes we have to face problems that the internet won't solve. That's one of the lessons we should put into the school's curriculum. It might even be possible to program the lesson on a computer!

John Hughes - Remember a day away....

The art of making films successful films is finding a resonant message that people can follow. One of the things that the late film director John Hughes Jr. (Feb. 18, 1950 - August 6, 2009) was able to do was tie into the discontentment that people feel with school. In films like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, he used school as the background for looking at issues in students' lives. He managed to show that schools are mismanaged, rather bizarre places that are backdrops for showing teen angst.

When Hughes looked at school, it was merely a backdrop for the pressing issues of adolescence. In Ferris Bueller, skipping a day of school didn't appear to be a big deal. The protagonist was able to outsmart the school system and his parents. In doing so, he managed to have quite a day. One got the feeling that missing a day of school really didn't make that much difference. In The Breakfast Club, students were brought together for Saturday school to serve detention and Hughes used the occassion to show the heavy emotional toll that being a teenager in suburbia can create. The detention teacher and the school were merely backdrops and foils in the students' lives. The films were filled with the crisis that students feel and the idea was that the smart kids would outsmart the system; playing by the rules lost its way. The films, made in 1985 and 1986 said that outsmarting the system was something to admire.

Twenty years later, we have a generation that experiences a financial melt-down. It was caused by people that wanted to make money by ignoring financial reality. This generation of students built houses and created mortgages for people who had no hope of paying for them. The financial system created ways of outsmarting the typical mortgage lending environment. The problems leading to the mortgage crisis were found in Hughes movies. Living within the rules wasn't very important, and perhaps Hughes was smart enough to pick up on that. His movies were wildly successful and had a very attentive audience.

What Hughes films seemed to exploit was disenchantment with the status quo. The students in his films weren't rebelling against school or society, but they didn't seem to respect it all that much either. The truth is, schools haven't changed that much since 1986. Hughes was a master at using school as a backdrop that meant little to his students. School and the education system was shown as more or a prop than a place to prepare for the future.

The truth is, our schools need to be better. Hughes films showed the upper middle-class perception of schools from a student's perspective and for that we should thank him. We should also thank him for some laughs.

Through the Peephole of Education

In the last week, someone apparently stuck a camera up to the keyhole of a sportscaster named Erin Andrews and photographed her while she was nude, and posted it to the internet. This represents not only a gross violation of her privacy, but also shows how little we pay attention to more important matters. Decency and discretion are thrown to the wayside as people create a mob mentality to be appraised of the latest scandal. Ms. Andrews didn't ask to be photographed, but one can assume that she is quite attractive, otherwise, she wouldn't be the most searched term on the internet.

As we address a recession, high unemployment, a record national deficit, escalation of the war in Afghanistan, and national education reform, it is amazing that the nation's attention is focused on the body of Ms. Andrews. To the nations credit, the second leading search for a person using the internet is for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. One would hope that since she is in the midst of talks with the Chinese, ther diplomatic efforts would focus searches for Secretary of State Clinton. However, many people seem to be riveted to Ms. Clinton because of her recent elbow injury. Though Ms. Andrews and Secretary of State Clinton were the first two "name" searches, one cannot even mention the next two items in polite company. Does this pre-occupation with trivia and smut overwhelm the important issues. In a country that is dedicated to the the idea of democracy and an educated electorate, can the country be sustained by people who seem more concerned with the latest "buzz" on the internet than substantive issues. Is the current and past education system responsible for creating a population that is primarily concerned with trivia?

A culture that is reduced to examining trivia will probably be, well trivial. We cannot sustain a Jeffersonian democracy with a Jerry Springer-type electorate base. Rather than teach to simplistic knowledge, we must create people in the society that actually think about problems in some detail. We live in a complex world, and what is needed to be knowledgable increases constantly. Our school systems have not kept up. In their current configuration, they are unable to improve enough to keep pace with society, must less outpace it.

The current education system needs reform The problem is that most of the fixes that have been proposed cost a lot and will do little in the long run. They cost a lot, and will do little.
In the book Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change (Rowman and Littlefield), there are discussion and suggestions for a large-scale overhaul of the education system that will benefit all students who attend school.

Things that matter

The world is very different now from the world of 5o years ago. Ideas used to persist for long periods of time and helped form a cultural identity. Unfortunately, those same tendencies to hold onto idea also have us prejudices and sterotypes that were often very harmful. However, it is also good for society to have a memory that lasts longer than the current news cycle. Part of our system of government requires that we develop memories so that we can decide what works and what does not.

Today the top-rated search ion the internet s for Brooke Hogan, a person who is now starting a movie career. How did this person become popular or a top search celebrity. Kim Kardasian is breaking up with Reggie Bush. I didn't know the two were an item. The only item that has political resonance is the cash-for-clunkers Bill that was introduced to get people to trade in their old fuel inefficient cars for new cars with higher fuel efficiency. What does this say about the United States? Does this pre-occupation with the present help us to determine what will be good for the future.

How is the country supposed to improve an educationsystem if there isn't a national consciousmness. Perfhaps we should all twitter in our idea about life.

Moonwalking and Education

In 1969, the United States celebrated when Neil Armstrong proclaimed that he reached the moon's surface and said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The thing that must keep in mind that it the race to the moon was started with an idea by President Kennedy in 1961, but was accomplished only after eight years of focused commitment toward the goal. It is focused commitment that must accompany an effort to make something happen. In 1961, Kennedy agenda was focused by fear of the Soviet Union. Today, the largest concern that most Americans face is the economy. Our ability to be competitive in the world is determined by our intellectual might, and as we embark on another round of education reform(s), we must realize that reaching a goal means working out the details of how to make it happen.

There were millions of details that had to be worked out in order to send people to the surface of the moon. The President articulated the goal, but millions of details had to be worked out to make it happen. As with most great accomplishments, the grandeaur of any large event is the culmination of many details.

Education policy makers must realize that making a speech doesn't make an event occur. Although America doesn't face threats from the Soviet Union, it does face economic threats to its current status and way of life. The nation's education system is a slower and more insidious problem to the nation's future than the Soviet Union. Public education has both implication for democracy and economic growth in the United States. It is important, and it is equally important to get it right.

As President Obama embarks on an ambitious education agenda, he must avoid rhetoric and look at the details. As the mishaps in the American space program have shown, the details are important. The tragedies of the space program left visible and dramatic outcomes when details are ignored. Small things are important. Knowing what one is doing is important. The United States' commitment to education must be focused, but it needs to work out the details.

Facebook and the Tour de France

While in India, Bill Gates told an audience he'd given up on Facebook due to too many friends. If ever there was an advertisement for the value of education, there it is. Everyone wants to be Bill Gates' friend. He also said the "text messaging" wasn't his style either.

Bill Gates knows the value of education. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has taken on many challenges; one of them is the state of American education. The Gates Foundation has had mixed success, but one thing they're doing is trying new ideas. They have thrown some money into the education arena and found that success can mixed and unpredictable.

This week President Obama came out with a plan to spend about $4 bn on American education. The problem is that the ideas being paraded about seem very similar to those of the previous administration. Yet, it is sort of like the opening day at the Tour de France race. Everyone's excited when the race starts. Where will the Obama education "plan" be when the race gets to the tougher stages; that is the question that needs to be answered. Right now, with money to wave around, both Bill Gates and Obama have lots of friends.

What we need are leaders.

Obama - "Race to the Top?"

Today President Obama announced that he would allow $4 billion in federal grant money to head toward public schools. It's called the "Race to the Top."

This is interesting. The President has put together a competitive grant program. If truly competitive, the people who are most competent in education would get the money. The need for change is mostly in areas where poverty and education seem to be intrinsically tied.

The White House press release said, "And we're counting on the fact that, ultimately, this is an incentive, this is a challenge for people who do want to change," Obama said. Hopefully, he will spell out who the "people" are that "do" want to change. One thing can be assured: People will apply for the $4 bn in funding. People will spend the $4 bn in funding, and taxpayers will be responsible for paying back $4 bn in funds.

Perhaps some perspective is in order here. Obama is on a spending spree in the White House. When people go on sprees, they tend to lose sight of the obvious and get caught in the moment. For example, when Paris Hilton was going out at night and "partying" with many people every night (it seemed), she loses the perspective on her actions. It seems normal. The fact is, most people do not behave this way. She recently claimed that she wasn't a "slut" and she wasn't "stupid." However, her actions seem to contradict her words. President Obama is throwing around a lot of money at problems. He's partying with the public's money. That's his job, but at some point, he will have to defend his actions. That money has to be paid back and it should be directed in the best way possible. Luckily President Obama will not have to defend his behavior like Paris Hilton does, but wanton spending will make people question his judgment.

Thank you Bill Gates

Back in 2005, Bill Gates III gave a speech to American governors and he told them that the education system in cannot work. For Gates, it was a prelude to tackling the problem of American education through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. For me, it was a challenge to find why public (actually most) education is the way it is. The result will be published in October 2009 and is called: Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change (Rowman and Littlefield). The book shows that until structural elements in education are changed, American education will continue to fail.

Bush and No Child Left Behind will fail. Obama's education plan that is headed by Department of Education secretary, Arne Duncan, will fail. He said he looked to four agendas to improve education: better information to track students; higher standards and better assessment; turning around troubled schools; and improving the quality of the workforce.

That all sounds good, but he sort of missed improving the quality of the lessons that students receive.... That's where the learning takes place.