The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
Those of us who spend a fair amount of time working on education issues are used to a common trend in the debate over reforming public schools. Virtually everyone on our side agrees that the status quo is unsustainable -- and often downright dangerous -- for the nation's children. After we concur on the need to expand charter schools or implement school choice, however, we fly off in a million different directions: should we simply reform curriculum to be more academically rigorous? Should we emphasize college preparatory work? Should we focus on vocational instruction? Should we abandon the traditional classroom altogether and emphasize digital learning?
Well, at one innovative Utah school, the answer to all of these question is 'yes.' From the Salt Lake Tribune:
The high school of the future might look something like this.
The school day has no beginning and no end. Classes go year-round. Students can learn in a variety of ways, including in traditional classrooms, through digital textbooks, at a community college and/or at a career and technical education center. Teachers and parents can track students’ daily work and progress online.
That school of the future is opening this month in Salt Lake City in the form of Innovations High. Local and national experts say the approach may be one of the first of its kind in the country — a regular public school that allows students to build their own schedules, cherry-picking classes from Salt Lake Community College, the district’s career and technical center, the district’s traditional high schools, and the school’s own face-to-face classes, which will be taught using digital textbooks through which students can move at their own speeds, on and off-campus.
For example, if students need help in a subject, they might sit in on classes at Innovations, at 1700 South and State Street, every day. Or, if they have great aptitude in a particular area, they might attend in that subject only once a week. Testing will be done in class.
Two things are worth noting here. The first is that Innovations is a conventional public school, not a charter or private institution. There are probably very few states besides Utah where you could get this kind of flexibility in a state-run facility, but it's still a reminder that it's possible for public school systems to innovate when they're not made hidebound by various and sundry interest groups.
The second is the emphasis on customization, so widely prevalent in consumer markets as to be taken for granted, yet widely ignored in education at all levels. That's a very positive development.
Before he died, I used to harbor a secret fantasy that Steve Jobs (who was no friend of teachers unions, by the way) would dedicate the final act of his career to an attempt to modernize American education. And indeed, based on Walter Isaacson's biography, it seems that he was starting to have thoughts along those lines. It would have been a ripe target for him -- in a world that was becoming defined by Jobs' technology, education still seemed stuck in the era of Henry Ford.
Alas, of course, Jobs didn't live long enough to chase that goal, but I think he'd feel that what's going on in Salt Lake City is a step in the direction he envisioned. I would share that enthusiasm. It's far past time we took American children off of the public education assembly line.
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Comments:
Jan '11
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
My only concern: how does one demonstrate, cultivate, or even learn critical thinking in this format?
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
My sense is that public schools are an extremely expensive form of day care. Innovations looks as if it leaves young people free to roam. That would not work, I suspect, in Chicago -- where they roam all too much.
May '12
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
I am not qualified to say if Innovations will be successful or not, but think this is a great example of reform at the local and state level.
Whatever form education of the future takes the first step is to get the federal gov't completely out of the process. Give communities and states the opportunity, responsibility, and accountability for educating children. There will be much more innovation and opportunity to adopt those ideas that work.
Jun '10
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
That's what I was thinking too. If you can make teenagers go and be missionaries for two years, with only some pocket change and a bicycle to their name, then this program is a piece of cake.
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
Mel Foil
That's what I was thinking too. If you can make teenagers go and be missionaries for two years, with only some pocket change and a bicycle to their name, then this program is a piece of cake. · 3 minutes ago
In a way, though, that's the point. This probably stands a better chance of working in a place like Salt Lake City than it would in most major urban centers. Look at the meaner parts of Chicago, by contrast, and the flexibility you need may have a lot more to do with discipline than curriculum (I recommend Dr. Ben Chavis' book, "Crazy Like A Fox" , for an example of how this worked in Oakland). The ability to choose different approaches for different educational constituencies is at the heart of the rationale for opening up choice, competition, and flexibility.
Mar '11
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
I applaud the very outside the box thinking and focus on some non-traditional approaches that try to harness some market forces. If we want structural education reform, those seem to me to be two components.
Nevertheless--and before I'm too critical, I'll stipulate that I'm open to learning more--I not only share Prof. Rahe's concern about how "scalable" this model is outside of Utah, but I wonder even if in this instance there is sufficient attention to the standards the students are being held to.
If the student is allowed to pursue what they are passionate about inside and outside the classroom, that's great and to be encouraged. If they are allowed to pursue only what interests them to the detriment of a more rounded education, do we not run the risk that some of the crucial things we ought to expect our newly minted 18 year old citizen and graduate to know?
To put the question more pointedly: what is the type of human being that this education is aiming at and how will we measure its success in achieving it?
Mar '11
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
I forgot to mention, too, that as much fun as it is to discuss this as a reform measure in theory, I'm do not reside in Utah or in this locality--and since I'm a federalist, if this approach is one that the folks in Utah wish to try in their system, they should have the freedom to innovate.
At the very least it will teach us somethings, likely both good and bad, that we can apply elsewhere.
May '11
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
Crow's Nest:
To put the question more pointedly: what is the type of human being that this education is aiming at and how will we measure its success in achieving it? · 17 minutes ago
Ditto! There is a core of basic knowledge each person should have in addition to their "hobbies". Some of the core is "hard".
It seems the "self-selection" process of students attending Innovations will also ensure a high level of success. How will this same model play out in northern New Mexico or in Pahokee, FL where poor minorities have an awful graduation rate?
Feb '11
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
Troy Senik,
How will you be able to show that the school has been successful or not and what has worked and what has not? If the school has higher test scores (NAEP or SAT), is it because the school is superior in it teaching method or because it has attracted students who would perform better anyway? There don't seem to be any controls. People who want to go there are free to sign up, so it is self-selecting group. Or so I understand.
I'm far from opposing this. I don't see that definite opinions could be formed about the methods being employed.
Feb '11
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
Those kids in Chicago would benefit from Catholic schools, but that's just not allowed with public funds in our very strange country.
Jul '11
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
Interesting that in this thread the words such as "control" and and "too much roaming" pop up.
When I think of school reform I am thinking choice (less control) and opportunity (roaming?).
So, in Chicago for instance, where there are mandatory attendance to gang ridden school that may be harmful (bodily) at best, a youngster has the option to join a school such as this and advance at their own pace, without time constraints? (Too naive?)
Also - since there is no "restriction" on admissions (such as lotteries in some schools or merit acceptance in others), I would think that the playing field would be less based on intellect and more on desire. This school would give "gifted" kids the opportunity to put in less time, and hard working less gifted kids to put in more time.
Granted, kids who are not motivated will not pursue this - but there is that old adage about bringing horses to water.
Mar '12
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
Presumably either the students are very motivated or the parents of the students are very motivated. Given the success of both parochial and private schools, noted at Ricochet in the past, perhaps a slightly more structured venue would work better.
Given the general success of home schooling, that should be in the mix.
My children, who were home schooled, wanted to play sports and sing in the chorale. In Minnesota, at that time, they needed to take one class a day in the public school to qualify for the extra curricular activities, so they did; and managed to avoid the pathologies occurring in the local middle and high schools.
So perhaps a home school / public school mix would be beneficial, as they were for my children.
May '10
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
Public education is irremediably screwed up.
Until funding for public education is separated from provision of public education (vouchers) and all parents have a real choice about where to send their children, "education reform" is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
Excellent point. I've long thought that there's a very good book to be written about how this principle (separating the idea that government should pay for something from the notion that it should provide it) is the one that should guide reform of about 90 percent of what government does.
Mar '12
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
If you can separate the moneys for education from the public school sector, which is a very good idea, I'm right there with you.
Until you can separate the moneys for education from the public school sector, you'll be looking at things like charter schools, the Utah experiment, and (the state permitting) something like what we did in Minnesota which permitted our kids to participate in team athletics and the music chorale by taking a one-hour class each day. (Note that the classes my children took were those they chose.)
Do you think you can separate education funding from the public school sector in your state? If yes, are there enough parochial (or religious) schools, enough private schools, and enough home schooling to force the public schools into educating the young?
I guarantee that if the public schools are forced to compete for the education dollar, they will. Until they are forced to compete for the education dollar, they will continue doing what they are doing right now, which is not much.
Mar '11
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
The real promise of digital education is its ability to bypass mediocre teachers who have long lost any enthusiasm they may have had for teaching in favor of the super stars who know their subjects, can explain them with clarity, and a make their relevance obvious to students. This is a rare gift and too few students ever come in contact with such genuine educators. The ability to have the best and most energetic teachers reach more students than could ever be the case in conventional classrooms is digital education’s most incontrovertible benefit.
Flexibility and customization are highly desirable, but are not sufficient, to ensure a quality education.
Aug '12
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
I have long suspected that something was lost when schools were "consolidated" sometime in the late 1940 or 50s. Big schools became the thing because the big schools could afford fancier equipment, but many kids get lost in a big school. In any group of kids of the same age, there are so many differences in ability, in interest, in learning style, and in the help and encouragement that comes from home. Complicated. Then you have the teaching problem (can we force teachers to major in something besides education?) and the curriculum problem, and the how to deliver it all problem. Each a separate problem, and they all have to be blended successfully. Is there any hope? Best education I ever had was in grades 3 and 4 in a one-room country schoolhouse, probably 15-18 kids grades 1-8, one teacher. Water pump out front, outhouses in the back, woodshed for the stove.
Mar '12
Re: The "All of the Above" Approach to Education Reform?
For all the folks noting they think there should be a "core curriculum" of what basics every child should complete--classic literature, American government, math through Algebra and Geometry, etc--I will note that Utah, as every state, requires every high school graduate to complete just such a core. It's called credits, which everyone will be familiar with: 4 of English, 3 of math, etc, and you need so many in each subject to graduate. Innovations students will certainly have to meet this. It's not a total free-for-all.
Research on homeschooled students has shown that "unschooling"--doing whatever you want and calling it school--has poor academic results, as you might imagine. Homeschoolers (and public and private schools) who do follow the traditional "core curriculum" formats far outpace their peers who attend the typical public school, nearly all of which use progressive (and therefore useless) methods.
Another post should be written about how Utah, like 43 other states, has adopted a new core curriculum the Obama administration pushed. It's better than some states' former requirements, worse than others'. It's highly controversial among conservatives, and a liberal dream come true (one national curriculum!).
--Joy