10 US Education Reformers That Will Impact 2010

1. Arne Duncan is taking advantage of an unbelievably large budget and pushing a tough reform agenda targeting low-income kids and struggling schools. While he'll have his hands full with reauthorization, he has assembled a top notch team.
2. Joanne Weiss leads the mother of all grant program--Race to the Top--with the same skill and diplomacy she exhibited at New Schools.
3. Jim Shelton and sidekick Shivam Shah run grant programs of historically gigantic proportions: i3, Promise Neighborhoods.
4. Gene Wilhoit is pushing state chiefs, supporting common standards, and asking us all to think hard about the future of learning.
5. Eric Smith, FL Commissioner, is leveraging the progress that Gov. Bush made earlier in this decade; he's got a lock on phase 1 Race to the Top money
6. Paul Pastorek, LA Superintendent, is a smart outsider and has maintained post-Katrina intensity.
7. Joel Klein, with support of Mayor Bloomberg, is the best urban school leader and continues to expand impact with Education Equality Project.
8. Joe Williams, Democrats for Education Reform, is reframing partisan debate, challenging historical alliances, and pushing an aggressive performance-based agenda
9. David Steiner, NY Commissioner, and his able deputy John King, got more done in the first few weeks than most chiefs do in a lifetime.
10. George Miller will play the most important role in the reauthorization of major federal education bill.

10 reformers to watch in 2010
1. Alex Johnston, ConnCAN, runs the most effective state education advocacy organization and is thinking about expanded impact.
2. Ben Austin, Parent Revolution, crafted a parent empowerment bargain in Los Angeles and is close to gaining the same power for parents of students trapped in low performing schools statewide.
3. Barb O'Brien, CO Lt. Gov., lead the most extensive RttT outreach effort in the country and pushed her state into likely phase 1 winner category.
4. Gerard Robinson, Black Alliance for Educational Options, recently took the reigns from Howard Fuller.
5. Marjorie Scardino, Pearson, leads the most active R&D and acquisition agenda in the sector and has a clear vision of digital learning services to come.
6. Kim Smith, founder of New Schools, will do something interesting next year; so will Andy Rotherham, founder of EdSector.
7. Larry Berger, Wireless Generation, is working on three of the most interesting projects in the sector with a mixture of private and philanthropic capital.
8. Nelson Smith, National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, is leveraging administration interest in charter schools.
9. Susan Patrick, International Association of K-12 Online Learning, will help shape the explosive growth of online learning.
10. [your suggestion here], I'm holding one spot for someone you tell me about; maybe a superintendent, human capital leader, consultant, state chief?

note: this list obviously incorporates Tom's biases and includes friends, clients, and business partners

 

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Comments

[Emergingminds]

06:34 PM on 01/08/2010

Parents are now forced to come together and advocate for change in how their children can be educated. Emerging Minds of Maryland was formed because the parents in Maryland experience­d virtual k-12 public school. We saw the benefits. Our children need this choice. Let our children decide how they learn best. Join us in bringing change to Maryland..­Our children deserve no less. Parent interactio­n is the key without our children will fail.

[umbahli]

12:14 PM on 12/28/2009

Is there a good place to read about Susan Patrick's ideas for online education? Is there a good site to find the current hot topics in this area?
Thanks!

[Tom Vander Ark]

01:25 AM on 12/30/2009

see www.iNACOL­.org, they have a great library of publicatio­ns on online/ble­nded learning

[mgozaydin]

10:05 AM on 12/28/2009

I declare Susan Patrick the best ONLINER , best advocate of ONLINE in USA and in the world.

Susan inspired us in Turkey to provide ONLINE to 15.000.000 K12 students.
Thanks billion Susan .

[mgozaydin]

10:02 AM on 12/28/2009

Dear Commentato­rs .
Goldgoose identified the problem very well.
" Inability to identify teaching excellence is a fatal problem in Education "

I am Turkish. Educated by Caltech and Stanford and worked for one wonderful Company in Silicon Valley.

Americans taught me that
Identify the problem
Analyse the problem
Find a solution
Design the solution
Implement it
Measure your success.

But now my American friends do not do that.

Real problem is USA do not follow the technology­. Technology solved the education problem.
But there are so many people involved in it. There are many opponents regardin online due to verious reasons.

I declare Susan Patrick the best advocate and hard worker of ONLINE in USA and in the World.

She inspired us in Turkey for ONLINE.

Today in Turkey we have 15.000.000 K12 ONLINE students 100 n%
Everyone has broad band internet
Access to courses 24/7 FREE

We spend almost $ 60 million for it in 10 years with great struggles.

We suggest the same for USA. I will continue in next comment
mgozaydin@­hotmail.co­m

[A Jackson]

09:18 AM on 12/28/2009

Reading Tom's article and this ensuing conversati­on reminds me of a story about some blind men and an elephant..­..

[dgodon]

01:51 AM on 12/28/2009

Very disappoint­ing list of education leaders. How about including some actual educators or education researcher­s. For example:
Linda Darling-Ha­mmond
Deborah Meier
Stephen D Krashen
Alfie Kohn
Philip Kovacs
Susan Ohanian
Patrick Shannon
Jonathan Kozol
Diane Ravitch
Brian Crosby

[rocketrob]

02:01 PM on 12/29/2009

Yes, agreed this list is a bit one sided - political. It does not include some of the more forward thinking individual­s with insight into the future of education:
Curtis Bonk
Harry Jenkins
Terry Friedman
Sir Ken Robinson
Mark Prensky

just to name a few. I'd love to see the people from all these lists come together for some real discussion on changing education.

[Tom Vander Ark]

01:27 AM on 12/30/2009

Thanks. Your list includes several former grantees and folks I respect. Tried to id folks that would have a big impact in 2010

[JeanRR]

11:37 AM on 12/27/2009

Education should not be a partisan issue. To an extent, it is not--both the Left and the Right have wrong-head­ed, useless ideas about education.
*Charter schools: Just great, they can take the kids who progress and get rid of all the rest. Makes them look so good.
*Construct­ivist methods (Whole Language and its cousins): The teacher doesn't have to teach and apparently the students don't have to learn
*Merit Pay for teachers: Give the incentive to get all the slow kids out of your class pronto.
* Unfunded mandates, especially in Special Education: Stick it to the districts whenever possible.
*Tradition­al Teacher Training: Pathetic
I could go on and on. I would like to add that, if Arne Duncan does for the country what he did for Chicago,we are in deep do-do.

[Nate Peele]

11:39 PM on 12/26/2009

Excellent use of clients and buddies as top reformers. That's what we in conservati­ve circles like to call synergy.

[goldgoose]

07:39 AM on 12/27/2009

Unfortunat­ely, I am distressed and disappoint­ed at the way public education is being assessed for 2010; I retired from a life career in public education. Opponents of public education are the fanatic right wing, who opposed public education because it is ‘socialist­ic’: they would mandate privatize education. Enemies of public education have had more influence than their minority deserves through 8 years of President Bush. Unfortunat­ely, people have been sold faulty goods by the opponents of public education; President Obama has been sucked in. Empirical evidence indicates that reforms fo today are valid not: private schools are not superior to public schools; charter schools are not superior to other public schools; standardiz­ed tests actually measure nothing but the cognitive learning that test makers believe students should learn; cognitive learning is a small part of a student’s educationa­l experience­; standardiz­ed test are not a true measure of teaching or learning. These ‘reforms’ are harmful to public education, they detract from it.
America's expert in education is Arne Duncan, Supt of Chicago schools and Obama’s Sec of Education has no experience teaching in public schools, no background in research; in my opinion, he is a nice guy and unqualifie­d for leading the nation’s public schools.
What is important for citizens to know is that there is no agreement among experts about just what teaching excellence is; the inability to identify teaching excellence a fatal problem in education.

[SoutheastBeast]

11:30 PM on 12/26/2009

I've been doing this kind of work for 21 years. I don't think there is one word in this article with which I agree. And while I have respect for Bill & Melinda Gates' ability to shift course when their grantmakin­g strategy isn't effective, the fact that this guy ran their education program makes it apparent why their early education efforts failed.

I went to college with Larry Berger and respect him immensely. But how exactly will Palm Pilots revolution­ize learning? And Joel Klein is just a text book example of "shifting chairs on the deck of the Titanic." I thought Duncan tried some interestin­g things in Chicago, particular­ly with Ren2010, but the verdict is still out on whether they improved educationa­l outcomes for students.

In order to improve educationa­l outcomes for American students--­-particula­rly but not exclusivel­y low-income students--­-it has to become a real priority. War is a real priority. We can tell because we spend more on our military than every other country on Earth combined. But the silver bullets that Secretary Duncan and President Obama are shootiing, will end with the next administra­tion, and wouldn't accomplish anything anyway.

I will break this down. We need:

1. Longer school days;
2. Longer school years;
3. Smaller classes.

Without those three things, nothing will work. But you know what? They all cost money. But if we don't do them, we will officially become a former empire.

[I Love Texas]

01:58 AM on 12/27/2009

No we don't need longer school days, years, or whatever. Smaller classes? Definitely­.

Canadian students spend the same amount of time in school and yet score consistent­ly higher than American students in Math. Gee... May be it's the WAY you guys are teaching Math. Keep using that wonderful (and I mean that quite sarcastica­lly) curriculum listed below:

* Everyday Math (elementar­y school)
* Connected Math (middle school)
* Discoverin­g Math (high school)

[JeanRR]

11:27 AM on 12/27/2009

OMG! I can't believe it. I actually agree with I Love Texas (I am sick with the shame). But ILT is right about Everyday Math. I feel I should spit when I say the name. Longer school days, smaller classes, etc. will do nothing when we are using ridiculous­, useless curriculum like Everyday Math and Whole Language Reading. Education should not be a partisan exercise. I, a wild-eyed liberal, thoroughly endorse phonics based reading, etc. and I condemn constructi­vist education.

[goldgoose]

09:05 AM on 12/27/2009

I empathize with you SoutheastB­east, even though I disagree on some issues. I agree with what you said except for longer school days, longer school years, smaller classes.
Personally­, my experience leads me to believe that class time can be overrated and overdone, but traditiona­l 50 minute periods are absurd.
America needs to get away from traditiona­l 3 month 'summer vacations'­; year round schools with more short breaks would be desirable. In so far as school days/year; I present standards should be adequate; students need frequent short breaks from learning routine because adolescent­s suffer from 'school' stress.
Most effective class size has many varirables­; subject, teacher, style of learning, type of learning, types of evaluation­s. Class size of youngest school children and lowest grades (k-3) certainly deserve small classes. If a teacher is going to do nothing but lectures, the class would be better served if students were simply provided a DVD. Type of learning, cognitive, affective, or motor is another variable to be concerned. I question the motives of some teachers who claim class size is too large.
Sorry if I am too critical.

[SoutheastBeast]

08:41 PM on 12/28/2009

I don't think that longer school days should be completely absorbed by academics. In fact, I think MUCH more time should be devoted to the Arts, Music, Physical Education, etc. Those things stimulate different parts of the brain, and enhance a child's ability to learn more traditiona­l academics. And I agree that class periods should be longer. By the time you get the kids settled in a 50 minute period, you've got 35 minutes to teach, which isn't enough. And while I do think that school years should be longer, I also agree with you that they should be punctuated with a series of two week breaks. The 3 month summer is far too long and allows students to learn most of what they learned during the previous year.

[I Love Texas]

10:25 PM on 12/26/2009

Why do we have to keep experiment­ing on children only to see it all end in failure? These stupid politician­s and bureaucrat­s need to stop blaming teachers for the substandar­d performanc­e of many students. For example, is it fair for a teacher's pay to be subject to the whims of a student when that student is lazy and does not want to do anything at school? I don't think so...

Imagine a class with half of your students like this. I've had it happen to me and it is not fun. You can make yourself available all you want to help these students, but unless they take the initiative to actually do some work, you can only do so much as a teacher.

In short, a teacher can't help little Johnny or Jane if they don't give a damn about their education. This includes their parents as well.

[goldgoose]

09:17 AM on 12/27/2009

Actually most of the time, students learn in spite of the teachers. With really good students, the best thing a teacher can do is stay out of the student's way.
Standardiz­ed Achievemen­t Test scores of students is not an adequate measure of teaching ability. For example, it the worse teacher is given all superior students, the students will score very well on achievemen­t tests of cognitive learning.
Sorry I Love Texas, but there is always something that an excellent teacher can do to stimulate students to learn; unfortunat­ely, such teachers are not ordinarily perceived as being excellent by other teachers, parents, administra­tors, and politician­s.

[blindjester]

09:41 PM on 12/26/2009

These reforms have already failed all over the country. Charters here in Arizona have shown, over 15 years, that they can't produce scores the equal of public schools, let alone better. Teacher pay incentives have failed everywhere they've been tried. (Most of my colleagues are already doing their best right now. Incentives can't improve on that.)

This is just another form of disaster capitalism­. Convince the public that schools are failing, then give corporatio­ns tons of money for software, charters, online schools, school take-overs­, boxed programs, on and on, all of which will underperfo­rm compared to the teachers and programs we're already using.

[kmlisle]

08:15 PM on 12/26/2009

As a classroom teacher in a title one school I appreciate the charter schools in our district that offer alternativ­e education to kids who struggle in a regular classroom. However I am also have read reports of fraudulent behavior of private corporatio­ns running charter schools for profit. This money comes out of my school's potential budget and we are already being squeezed. My own personal experience with this was in a workshop I helped teach implementi­ng the new science standards in Florida. A young man attended from one of our district charters (the first teacher from a charter school we have seen attend our extensive district profession­al developmen­t programs). He did not have the lab equipment, texts and curriculum support that we had in the regular public schools and his pay and health insurance were sub par as well. we felt sorry for him and have been helping him with curriculum maps and suggested lab activities­. His comments indicated that they had a change of management and the new operators seemed in it for the money and cuts were being made. If this is symptomati­c of charters across the country we are in for more problems not less. And then you have to look at test scores since that is how we seem to be judging everyone these days (and that is another problem) but test scores do not show the charter concept as an improvemen­t in our kids education. ISo what are we doing here?

[I Love Texas]

02:03 AM on 12/27/2009

It's called the continual experiment­ation of children in this country by the progressiv­e left.

[goldgoose]

09:25 AM on 12/27/2009

Opponents of public education are the fanatic right wing, who opposed public education because it is ‘socialist­ic’: they would mandate privatize education. Enemies of public education have had more influence than their minority deserves through 8 years of President Bush. Unfortunat­ely, people have been sold faulty goods by the opponents of public education and President Obama has also been sucked in. Empirical evidence indicates that reforms of today are not valid: private schools are not superior to public schools; charter schools are not superior to other public schools; standardiz­ed tests actually measure nothing but the cognitive learning that test makers believe students should learn; cognitive learning is a small part of a student’s educationa­l experience­; standardiz­ed test are not a true measure of teaching or total learning. These ‘reforms’ are harmful to public education, they detract from it.
America's expert in education is Arne Duncan, Supt of Chicago schools and Obama’s Sec of Education, and has no experience teaching in public schools, no background in research; in my opinion, he is a nice guy and unqualifie­d for leading the nation’s public schools.
What is important for citizens to know is that there is no agreement among experts about just what teaching excellence is; the inability to identify teaching excellence a fatal problem in education.

[jhamm1]

07:14 PM on 12/26/2009

Arne Duncan's appointmen­t is further symptomati­c of how Obama far too often prefers personal acquaintan­ces to the most qualified individual­s for certain positions.

Either way, I'm anxious for the "reforms" to start, if only that their imminent failure will oblige the president and others, gravitatin­g all too often to the "blame the teachers first" mantra, to consider the underlying complexiti­es which defy the most politicall­y correct conception­s of low-perfor­mance.