Models our Practice (Real-World Learning by Doing!)

Sunday: August 14, 2011 12:00PM to 2:00PM (Channel #4 MSNBC A Stronger America: "Making the Grade")

Clickondetroit.com
http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/28851709/index.html

A View to the Future of 21st Century Digital Learning Environments Beyond the Classroom

COMMENTARY

Using Technology to Move Beyond Schools

Think ahead 10 or 15 years and ask yourself, “What proportion of the activity called ‘learning’ will be located in the institution called ‘school’?” The availability of relatively cheap technologies offering direct access to knowledge of all types creates opportunities for students to experience a dramatic increase in the choice of what they learn, with whom they choose to learn, and how they choose to learn. How will the institution called “school” survive in this environment, in what form will it survive, and what would schools look like if they chose not just to “survive” but to find a productive place in this new environment?

With rare exceptions, schools currently treat the digital revolution as if it never happened. Computers, more often than not, still sit in dedicated rooms, accessible only with adult supervision. Laptops, when they are used at all in classrooms, are frequently employed as electronic worksheets, digital typewriters, and presentation producers, rather than as extensions of students’ access to knowledge. When students do use technology to extend the reach of their learning, they typically do so by visiting predigested information sources and cutting and pasting information into predetermined, teacher-driven formats. “Social networking” among students is treated as a subversive activity engaged in by kids who are up to no good, and certainly not as a promising point of entry to anything that might be called “learning.”

When students step out the door of the institution called school today, they step into a learning environment that is organized in ways radically different from how it once was. It’s a world in which access to knowledge is relatively easy and seamless; in which one is free to follow a line of inquiry wherever it takes one, without the direction and control of someone called a teacher; and, in which, with a little practice, most people can quickly build a network of learners around just about any body of knowledge and interests, unconstrained by the limits of geography, institutions, and time zones. If you were a healthy, self-actualizing young person, in which of these environments would you choose to spend most of your time?

The basic problem with this scenario, however, is this: The more accessible learning becomes through unmediated relationships and broad-based social networks, the less clear it is why schools, and the people who work in them, should have such a large claim on the lives of children and young adults, and the more the noneducational functions of schooling come to the fore.

Consider three possible school scenarios for the next generation or so.

The first might be called “fighting for survival,” or “turtle gets a laptop.” Schools continue to be organized and run in much the same way as they are today. They “incorporate” various forms of learning technology into their existing organization and culture—more laptops, more interactive whiteboards, faster Internet connections, more digital lessons, and greater use of technology for improved efficiency of operations (grading, parent communication, coordination of meeting times, and so on). Teachers and schools continue to control access to content and learning. In this instance, schools will increasingly become custodial institutions, isolated from the lives of their students and the learning environment beyond their walls.

About This Series

A working group on the “Futures of School Reform,” organized by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and led by Robert B. Schwartz and Jal D. Mehta of Harvard and Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, includes more than two dozen researchers, policymakers, and practitioners from around the country. The group is seeking to engage a wider audience in an “urgent” conversation—one that it hopes can advance the national dialogue on improving public education for all children. The working group has received convening support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Spencer Foundation.

Education Week is running a seven-part series of Commentary essays expressing visions of members of the “Futures” group. The series, which concludes in the May 25 issue, is accompanied by a blog, The Futures of School Reform, written by the group. Readers are invited to participate by posting comments on the blog, or writingletters to the editor.

The second scenario might be called “controlled engagement,” or “frog gets a GPS device.” In this case, schools make some nonincremental leaps in the way they are organized and run. Schools set the learning destinations and map out the best pathways to those destinations. Technology becomes less about adult control and rationalizing business operations and more about opening portals for learning that are connected to the world outside of schools. So, for example, an elementary school in Huntsville, Ala., develops a two-way bilingual instructional cooperative to teach its students Mandarin with an elementary school in Shanghai, where teachers alternate lessons in English and Mandarin using video technology and shared materials. Or a rural high school in South Dakota is wired into a math-science collaborative sponsored by the National Science Foundation that connects its students to a physics course with students from several other high schools around the country, including Bronx Science in New York City and High Tech High in San Diego. Teachers are less gatekeepers of knowledge, and more knowledge brokers. School leaders become less managers of instruction, and more entrepreneurs connecting their organizations to the broader learning environment. Schools become less places where students go to learn from adults, and more places where adults and students get together to enter a broader learning environment. But schools still play an important role in determining what constitutes “knowledge” and “learning” for students.

The third scenario might be called “open access to learning,” or “caterpillar learns to fly.” Here schools cease to play the determining role in what constitutes knowledge and learning. If society (read: politicians) decides that there has to be such a role (which will inevitably be increasingly contested), that role is vested in an organization that sets broad standards for content (not unlike the common-core standards) and broad guidance about how students and parents can get access to learning consistent with those standards. Schools are on their own, competing with other types of service providers and learning modalities for the interest and loyalty of students and their parents. A family might combine services from two or three different organizations into a learning plan for its children—tutoring for “basic” academic content, active learning and access to the digital environment at an experiential learning center, and physical and kinesthetic development from a sports and recreation center. Over time, a student might choose to focus for a period on only one type of learning—six months in an intensive language program, or three months on a biology expedition. And students might also choose to work on some areas of learning exclusively through online vendors. Students would accumulate digital learning portfolios that would summarize their learning and proficiency around broad standards and would be available for higher education institutions and potential employers to access. The system would be financed by a per-student capitation grant, adjusted to family income, parents’ education, and student learning needs (which would include accommodations for disabilities and English-language learning). Schools, as we presently know them, would gradually cease to exist and be replaced by social networks organized around the learning goals of students and their families.

Which of these environments makes sense, given the future of learning in our society? Is “school” a brick-and-mortar building, or a way of organizing and providing access and support for learning? Who decides what and how to learn? What is society’s role in that decisionmaking? How do we ensure that the students who have the most to gain and lose in any fundamental transformation of “school”—the very students least well served by the current institution of school—are best supported to thrive and succeed?

Here are a few first steps to get a start in exploring these questions:

1. Talk with students, teachers, and other educators about what school could and should look like. Encourage them to be audaciously imaginative.

2. Visit (in person or virtually) schools that look really different.

3. Use new school construction and renovation conversations as opportunities to think differently about the design of learning environments.

It’s 2025. What does school look like? Or better yet, what does learning look like and sound like?

Meeting on Senate Bill #383 5-13-2011

Senators’ bill would keep film credits

Co-sponsor sees tough fight ahead

By KATHERINE YUNG FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

   In a bid to keep Michigan’s film industry thriving, two state senators have introduced a bill to preserve tax credits for movie making in the state.

   Senate Bill No. 383 was introduced Thursday by Sens. Mike Kowall, R-White Lake Township, and Virgil Smith, D-Detroit.

   Kowall, chair of the Senate Economic Development Committee, acknowledged that winning support for it is “going to be tough,” but “I’ve got a good feeling about it.”

   Even though the state Legislature voted to eliminate the credits as part of a tax-reform package Thursday, Senate Bill 383 could restore some incentives for the industry.

   The bill, which attempts to modify the current incentives, is subject to changes during upcoming budget negotiations. It would allow the state to award filmmakers tax credits of up to 42% for their production expenditures, instead of an absolute 40% or 42%.

   Michael Finney, CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corp., said that under these terms, he expects the state’s film tax credits would vary from 10% to 30%. The actual number would vary depending on the state’s negotiations with each production company.

   Kowall said he consulted with MEDC officials on the bill.

   Finney also said the state would like to make TV commercials eligible for the incentives for the first time.

   He spoke during a public hearing about the film incentives held Friday by the Senate Economic Development Committee at the new $80-million Raleigh Michigan Studios in Pontiac.

   Kowall said his bill would limit the amount of money the state could spend on film incentives. But what form any cap would take is unclear.

   In mid-February, Gov. Rick Snyder proposed putting a $25-million cap on spending for the incentives, which are currently uncapped and are among the most generous in the nation. The movie industry opposes this limit, saying it will sharply curtail filming. It has been lobbying for a $180-million cap.

   The Friday hearing is the first of several that the Economic Development Committee plans to hold, Kowall said. The next one is scheduled for Wednesday in Lansing.

   At the hearing, Raleigh Michigan executives confirmed for the first time that the Disney production, “Oz: The Great and Powerful,” will be the first feature film to use the studio’s seven sound stages. Filming is to begin in August and continue through the rest of the year.

   “Oz,” which received a $40-million tax credit last year, will be the largest movie to film in Michigan and is expected to spend $105 million in the state. It is a prequel to “The Wizard of Oz.”

   Disney confirmed Friday that “Oz” will be directed by Michigan native Sam Raimi. The movie is to directly employ 257 Michigan residents.

   “What we really have here is a world-class facility,” said Steve Lemberg, Raleigh Michigan’s chief financial officer. “This is about getting Michigan people working.”

ERIC SEALS/Detroit Free Press

   Mike Finney, CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corp., speaks at a soundstage at Raleigh Michigan Studios in Pontiac on Friday.

Working Metaphor (Begin with the END in MIND)

Aligns to OUR Purpose (By Design)

Bold ideas: Online study, payouts

Snyder‘s education plan has innovative reforms to reward schools’ success

By CHRIS CHRISTOFF FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU CHIEF

   Gov. Rick Snyder will propose Wednesday financial rewards to individual schools that show exceptional academic progress.

   The money could be divided among the teachers or used in other ways they choose, according to a source familiar with the plan.

   It’s among reforms in a special message on education Snyder will deliver at 10 a.m. at the United Way for Southeastern Michigan in Detroit.

   Snyder also wants to allow students to choose online classes they can complete at home or other sites, rather than comply with state rules that they be in a classroom at least 1,098 hours a year.

   “There are some kids who learn better reading and looking at words than they do listening to a lecture,” said Bill Rustem, Snyder’s director of strategy.

   Rustem said it would be up to school districts to set guidelines for online programs, which education experts say can work well for both advanced students and those who perform poorly in traditional classes.

   Snyder also will call for changes in teacher tenure laws and charter schools in his education message. He delivered a similar address on local government reforms in March.

Best way to track results is measuring, Snyder says

Educators need more incentives, training

By CHRIS CHRISTOFF FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU CHIEF

   EAST LANSING — Gov. Rick Snyder told several hundred educators Monday to get used to the idea of measuring students’ performance.

   He’ll talk a lot about that Wednesday, he said, when he delivers his special message on education in Detroit.

   “We have to put much more emphasis on proficiency, on growth, on measurements and results than we have had in the past,” Snyder told the Governor’s Education Summit, an annual gathering of mostly teachers and school officials. “It’s about really delivering results for these kids, to show the whole system needs to be geared to say each child gets a good year’s education each and every year.”

   He said teachers and administrators must be given more incentives and training to improve the schools.

   “The way to approach it is not to get down on people, it’s not to approach it with blame,” he said. “It’s not (to) be negative with one another. It’s about how we look to the future and be positive and build on that as an opportunity to succeed together.”

   That means more autonomy for individual schools and teachers, and a system to financially reward outstandingteachers who can mentor others, he said.

   State schools Superintendent Michael Flanagan called for a deregulation of schools, such as eliminating minimum numbers of hours or days students must attend each year. Instead, schools would set their own guidelines for studentsto meet state academic goals.

   “My goal is to take away as many regulations as we can but hold people accountable for academic growth,” Flanagan said.

   A person familiar with Snyder’s plan said the governor won’t call for eliminating the minimum hours requirement, but will ask to give districts options, such as online learning programs for some students.

   Snyder’s speech is much anticipated, as the Legislature wrestles with how much to cut from state aid to school districts. Snyder has called for $300 per pupil less than the current year for all districts, but the Republican-controlled House and Senate are considering slightly different cuts.

   Snyder has often spoken of moving to an education culture that depends more on measured outcomes than on debates over money.

   He also will talk about an education system that begins with prenatal care programs.

   “I hope he will set some big audacious academic goals for us to accomplish in Michigan like they have done in other Midwestern states like Missouri, Kentucky and Illinois,” said Carol Goss, president and CEO of the Skillman Foundation, in a response to the Free Press. She has met with Snyder to discuss education ideas.

   She said she hopes Snyder will propose more public-private partnerships, more accountability, and giving students more career alternatives than going to college, which does not suit some.

   In his remarks Monday, Snyder pointed to the United Way’s early childhood programs as an example of how the state could join with private ventures.

   Snyder also has met twice with philanthropist Eli Broad, a Michigan native and head of the Broad Foundation , which has aggressively funded some education initiatives.

   “They talked about using their expertise in education to help supplement what we’re doing to get a handle on not only the Detroit school system, but other public school districts, and what kind of innovative practices are out there,” said Snyder’s chief of staff Dennis Muchmore.

   Democrats, who’ve sharply criticized Snyder for his proposed cuts to schools and universities, were wary about his Wednesday speech.

   “I’m ready to work with the governor if he’s serious about giving our children a quality education, but his actions are speaking louder than his words,” said Rep. Lisa Brown, D-West Bloomfield, minority vice chair of the House Education Committee.

Skillman Foundation CEO Carol Goss

State Superintendent Michael Flanagan

File photo by PATRICIA BECK/Detroit Free Press

   “The way to approach it is not to get down on people, it’s not to approach it with blame,” Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said Wednesday of measuring student performance. He spoke at the Governor’s Education Summit in East Lansing.

Digital Conversation Begins

Digital Conversation Begins
http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/27326559/index.html

Politics are WHAT got us here, But only TALENT will Win the Day!

From fight over film incentives, a new star emerges

   I stood in a town hall meeting packed with 2,000 other people and heard a future governor speak.

   Oh, Oakland County Trea surer Andy Meisner didn’t make any political announcements. What he did was address a throng of potential and current film industry workers who don’t seem to have current Gov. Rick Snyder’s ear.

   And he was self-effacing and good-humored, but also strong and passionate.

   “Gov. Snyder? This is Michigan, and this is what we do!” Meisner said to cheers.

   Film incentives working

   Snyder wants to end film incentives and, instead, offer $25 million in grants that wouldn’t interest studios.

   “We came together a number of years ago with maybe a crazy idea — but it wasn’t really so crazy,” said Meisner, who cosponsored the film credit legislation when he served in the state House. “We did research, and we examined what had happened in our sister states, and what our research showed was there was a real ability to bring this industry to Michigan.”

   Meisner reminded the crowd at Laurel Manor in Livonia that a new Legislature must decide whether to honor its predecessor’s near-unanimous decision — and honor a promise to Michigan’s creative class and young people who want to stay here but don’t want to be computer geeks or auto workers or farmers.

   “Our No. 1 goal was to stimulate jobs and investment at a time when this wasn’t happening,” he said.

   And it worked. The film industry investment program has resulted in jobs for hundreds of people — voters — with the potential to create work for thousands more. The program also has done what millions in marketing and TV ads did not — put a new, big spotlight on Michigan.

   It did what the former governor’s Cool Cities program didn’t: It made Michigan cool.

   It also poured money into Michigan’s economy and people’s pockets, not state coffers.

   The only thing it didn’t do was include a way to measure its own success. But that’s fixable. The program works.

   Shades of Obama

   “Before the governor’s ink was dry on my legislation, we had $125 million in (film) business lined up,” Meisner said.

   I’ve watched Meisner win landslide elections to the Legislature three times, and then to a county treasurer’s job.

   And I have to say: I got the same feeling Thursday night that I did when Sen. Barack Obama spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, that something bigger is ahead for him.

   Meisner stood before a crowd so large that, at one point, he had to pause to catch his breath.

   “I’m a little overwhelmed,” he said mid-speech.

   The crowd cheered again.

   It wasn’t the words. It was a presence. And whatever happens with the movies, something else happened Thursday in Livonia, something worth watching.

   • CONTACT ROCHELLE RILEY: RRILEY99@FREEPRESS.COM  

FORMER LAWMAKER MAKES BIG IMPRESSION ON ROCHELLE RILEY

KIMBERLY P. MITCHELL/Detroit Free Press

   Oakland County Treasurer Andy Meisner laughs while speaking during the Michigan Film Industry Town Hall Meeting on Thursday.

Michigan can’t afford rich film subsidy

By JOHN NIXON

   I would like to set the record straight on the state’s position when it comes to the issue of film credits. In the news media coverage, we’ve been painted as everything from Hollywood haters to job killers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

   I’ve stated publicly that the entertainment industry is a viable industry but that we need to find a different mechanism to support the industry. Our current mechanism is nothing more than a subsidy by which the state writes a check for 42% of the cost of the film project with almost no return on investment to the state coffers.

   Furthermore, there are no limits to the number of films or the number of checks we write. If a producer spends $100 million on a film in Michigan, we would be forced to write them a check for $42 million. Michigan simply can’t afford this.

   Film credits, the way they are implemented today, are not tax rebates. They are a subsidy that has cost the state $190 million over the last two years. That’s $190 million that didn’t go to schools, roads, Medicaid or any of the other important state programs supporting our citizens.

   There are numerous reports that have been released on the merits of state funding for the film industry. I don’t want to debate which reports are right or wrong; some reports will tell you it’s a bad investment for states to make, while other reports will say it’s a good investment.

   I realize that there is economic activity that is associated with filmmaking in our state, and I realize that there is a sense of pride in having Michigan involved on the big screen. The question becomes: How much are Michigan taxpayers willing to pay for this? And what state services are taxpayers willing to cut in order to fund the movie business?

   The bottom line here is that, while economic activity is generated, the film industry doesn’t give the state coffers a return on investment, the industry does not create sustainable jobs for the long term, and the cost for the long-term jobs that it does create is quite high.

   Conservative estimates show that the number of direct full-time jobs associated with the film industry from 2009-10 is 1,621. This equates to a state cost of $117,211 for each job, a cost that is placed on the backs of our taxpayers, and a cost that makes cuts to other state programs.

   Putting together this recommended budget was no easy task. Michigan faces a significant deficit of $1.4 billion, and it requires tough decisions.

   There was shared sacrifice everywhere in this budget. If you take a step back and look at it, and realize that we maintained $100 million for the film industry in the recommended budget, I would argue that’s a strong show of support, given our situation. In fact, Michigan is still among the top states in the nation in supporting the film industry.

   I am very proud of the budget we recommended for fiscal year 2012. It’s a responsible budget, the right thing to do for Michigan, with a focus on job creation for the long term. I don’t mean to minimize the difficulty of shared sacrifice, but this is the type of budget that is needed to move Michigan forward.

   • JOHN NIXON IS THE BUDGET DIRECTOR AND A GROUP EXECUTIVE IN GOV. RICK SNYDER’S CABINET.

John Nixon