Can Teachers Run Their Own Schools?
Posted on | April 19, 2010 | Comments Off
John Parr at the IDEAL School in Milwaukee
As a part of the “learning differently” study, I have visited several schools run as teacher cooperatives: no principal, flat organization.
Cooperatives, of course, are a great American tradition. We think of the limited liability corporation as one of the great social inventions of the last two hundred years, but cooperatives have been a part of the fabric of our society in ways that are just as important. Agricultural cooperatives made the production and marketing of citrus in Southern California possible and commercially viable while preserving family ownership of the means of production for more than fifty years. Think Sunkist. Cooperatives brought hundreds of farmers together throughout the upper Midwest. Think Green Giant. The spirit of cooperation made American civic life possible. Think Tocqueville. But can cooperatives work for schools? Read more
Peer Review Redux
Posted on | April 13, 2010 | Comments Off
The idea of peer review for teachers, that I wrote about in United Mindworkers, and A Union of Professionals in the 1990s has now come alive again. See this recent Huffington Post piece.
First there is a new book by Jennifer Goldstein, published by Teachers College Press. It describes the work of the PAR panels in detail and takes the mystery out of the process.
Also, Susan Moore Johnson along with her students at Harvard has put up a first rate user’s guide to peer review.
Steven Sawchuk of Education Week recently reviewed the state of play and the districts with current programs.
For earlier work by Julia Koppich and me, please click on the Projects link at the top of this page.
A Not Quite Palace Revolt
Posted on | April 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Bruce Fuller from UC Berkeley has written about the politics of LAUSD in Education Next. Under the title “Palace Revolt in Los Angeles?” he recounts the story of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s attempts to control the school system and particularly how his connection to grassroots Latino activism and United Teachers Los Angeles.
The connection between grassroots community organizing and the union is important. In the wake of the public school choice process in February, when Pilot School applications were heavily favored over those from charter schools, attention has largely turned to the apparent victory for UTLA in out-politicking the charter management organizations. Read more
A Note about GLOW, the Scottish Education Intranet
Posted on | April 3, 2010 | 2 Comments
I wrote a short piece in the Huffington Post today about Glow, the Scottish investment in an intranet system. It’s worth a longer look, and I am overdue in finishing up a descriptive analysis of how it works and how it was created.
There are three important things to realize about Glow:
First, it is not about technology for its own sake. Think of it as a teaching utility that makes collaboration possible. Glow links teacher-created lessons with the national curriculum, allowing both standards and variation to exist at the same time. In a sense, it manages the paradox of centralization and decentralization.
Second, it is a testimony that politics and government can tackle a big project, bring it in under budget, and create lasting infrastructure in education. It took a decade to move Glow from first thoughts to countrywide roll-out. During that time literally thousands of people were involved in the design. The Scottish government relied on a quasi-governmental agency called Learning and Teaching Scotland to coordinate its development and a private contractor, RM, to do the technology work. Meanwhile, local school authorities gained the broadband capacity to connect to high-speed intranet, particularly important in a country with lots of isolated rural schools. All of this was possible only because the political system tolerated a long view of infrastructure development rather than short range achievement targets or “silver bullet” programs that promise dramatic results in months. At root, Glow is about changing how a generation of teachers approaches their work.
Finally, Glow is a symbol of national pride. It rose after the birth of Scottish legislative independence, and it marked a path toward education that was more broadly focused than that of England.
More about Glow from Learning and Teaching Scotland and iTunes U.
In future posts, I will be writing more about education technology in California and particularly in Los Angeles. Suggestions welcome.
Exhibition Night at High Tech High
Posted on | March 27, 2010 | Comments Off
Produced by 10-Graders; available at blurb.com
For an interesting evening, a feel-good experience, and a lesson in what schools can be, spend an evening looking at exhibits of student work at High Tech High in San Diego.
I saw scores of well crafted examples of what high school students can do, some of which were highly sophisticated. The HTH students were enthusiastic about their work, and their presentations were often ready for prime time. The novel combination of head and hands, of work across disciplines, produced a blood-splattered crime scene, a primer on economics, conceptual art based on geometry, narratives of people and war accompanied by stunning linoleum block prints, original plays, and lots of videos. And then there is the series of books drawn from biotechnology research in San Diego Bay. The work-in-progress unveiled Thursday was on invasive species. Great stuff.
I went to HTH because it violates some important assumptions we have about schooling: that academic and vocational education must be separated, that hands-on and concrete is the enemy of college prep, and that school learning is distinct from learning in the community. It will be an important part of my study on the politics of learning differently.
My thanks to the students, teachers, and the boys in the band for allowing me to visit.
For more on High Tech High
The L.A. Compact: Increasing Civic Capacity
Posted on | March 16, 2010 | 2 Comments
In a Huffington Post piece today, I lauded the new L.A. Compact as a sensible and hopeful way to engage the city in support of its schools. The Compact is modeled after the Boston Compact, that drew together the business community, the schools, and the city government in that city for more than two decades. The agreement no longer glues the parties together in Boston, and there are lessons in the unraveling for Los Angeles, but the greater lesson is that the Compact idea is potentially powerful. In my mind, it is a much better policy path for Los Angeles than an attempted mayoral takeover of the schools.
This latter path, which has drawn the support of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, has as its origins a political understanding of strong mayor cities, such as New York and Chicago. But in a city like Los Angeles, where the clout of the mayor is more related to personality than the powers of office, reaching outside for working coalition is more powerful.
The Compact (full text here) also recognizes the growing power of unions in Los Angeles’ civic life, and involving them in what amounts to a long-term capacity building venture is both strategic and politic.
New Pictures in The Gallery
Posted on | March 13, 2010 | Comments Off
In addition to occasional thoughts about education, I dabble in photography. A few from 2009 are posted in the Gallery (see link above). Enjoy.
FYI/ You will not find pictures of the kids, grandchildren, Christmas tree, or other family related photographs here. It’s a photo gallery; not a public family album.
Next up in gallery and as an essay: an obituary for departed friend, Kodachrome, with some pictures from the past. Remember all the red lips and bigger than life colors?
Real life, except better.
Mel Smith
Posted on | March 12, 2010 | Comments Off
Mel Smith died this week at 97. He was my surrogate father, the go-to elder in my life, the model of a public servant, and a Christian gentlemen. His warm smile, ready handshake, and sunny disposition triumphed in a life that could have been surrendered to grousing about bureaucracy and personal tragedy.
Mel passed out get-out-of-jail cards for a living, second chances on life. He believed in people foibles and all.
Flap of the Week: Close Schools, Fire Teachers
Posted on | March 2, 2010 | Comments Off
Being either cunning or careless, President Obama this week gave the nod toward supporting the Central Falls, Rhode Island, superintendent who announced that he would close a failing high school and fire all the teachers who staffed it. The American Federation of Teachers, which represents the teachers at the school, and the National Education Association–the nation’s largest teacher union–immediately criticized the action, and the AFL-CIO has joined them. Randi Weingarten, the AFT president, called it another example of scapegoating teachers. Read more
New Policy Brief Based on Learning from L.A.
Posted on | February 25, 2010 | Comments Off
PACE (Policy Analysis for California Education) has just issued a new policy brief based on the conclusions in Learning from L.A.: Institutional Change in Public Education. It retraces a little of the historical narrative from the book and introduces the five policy levers we think are necessary to move the District past muddling through permanent crisis. Download the brief.
LLA has also been picked by Choice as one its academic books of the year. See the announcement.
Recent Posts
- September 21: Hold the Date. Fr. Greg Boyle to Speak in Claremont
- Missing the Point on Cortines
- Action on the Parent Movement for Commercial Property Taxes
- Turning Around Troubled Schools
- Some Lincoln Republicans Meet The ‘Do It’ Democrats
- A Grand Mother’s Day
- “Learning from L.A.” Recognized as Publication of Year
- A Feel Good Look at Learning’s Future
- A Word from Professor Drucker…and Friends about Education Standards
- A New Look at Europe
Recent Projects
- Disrupting Class and the End of Batch Processing Teaching
- Learning from L.A.: Institutional Change in American Public Education
- For Teacher Unions: Things That Go Bump In The Night
Currently Reading
About
Charles Taylor Kerchner is a Research Professor in the School Educational Studies at the Claremont Graduate University and a specialist in educational organizations, educational policy, and teacher unions.