I retired in June of 2011 and yesterday I returned to the high school where I had taught social studies for 35 years. The district is one of the wealthiest in Ohio. Many of the residents are well-paid professionals. Our alumni include numerous lawyers (one of whom argued in front of the US Supreme Court a year or so ago), doctors, executives, a current member of the Saturday Night Live cast, and a current newsperson on a national network. Every year, we would send students to Ivy League schools. In short, it is a district of high-powered residents who demand a quality education for their children. If they felt the public schools did not suit their needs, there were five excellent private schools nearby from which they could choose.

It was great seeing my friends and colleagues, and seeing former students was wonderful. However, after sitting down and talking with several members of the social studies department and a friend from the Foreign Language Department, I came to see all is not well in my former place of employ. It is time for contract negotiations which always worries people, especially in unsteady economic times. The Board has come in with a tough position, wanting little, or no movement with salary increases, raising health care premiums, and cutting back on severance pay. 

On top of this, Ohio funds its own State Teachers Retirement System. By law, this system has to show it is fully funded 30 years into the future. First the dot com crash, then the Great Recession have hit STRS hard. Changes are going to have to be made. STRS used to fund health care for retirees and spouses, now only retirees are funded - an just partially. Teachers are able to retire after 30 years at any age, with a bonus if they stayed for 35 years. It appears they will now have to teach to age 60 and have at least 35 years of teaching (no bonus) before retirement, and pay a greater percentage of their salaries (currently 10%) into STRS while teaching. These changes have not taken effect yet, but they are looming over teachers in the near future.

Then there is the residue of a nasty fight with Ohio governor John Kasich, who last year had the state legislature eliminate collective bargaining for public employees and their unions. The unions organized and obtained enough signatures to force a referendum on the issue, which was then overturned. Nevertheless, Kasich and his supporters are expected to try again to weaken public employees’ unions in Ohio.

Throw in the educationally unsound practices of high stakes testing, value-added teacher evaluations, and the constant attacks on teachers by politicians and pundits of both political parties and it is no wonder teachers, even in high-performing districts like where I used to teach, are demoralized. It makes me angry, and it makes me want to do something to help my friends and former colleagues. 

For the past several years I’ve been reading about the “crisis” in education. Teachers have been blamed and labeled incompetent. There has been a concerted push by conservatives to privatize education, an attack on our democracy with severe consequences which liberals, including the Obama administration, seem unaware. The entire underpinnings of education in the twenty-first century are being tossed aside, yet no one has come forth with a unified system to replace it - why?

Computers, cars, and books can serve to show that we deal with change best when it is incremental. Perhaps the best example of keeping things familiar in a new setting is the desktop metaphor which opened computing to the masses. Command line entry appealed to only a few, yet a visual display called a “desktop,” with folders and icons brought understanding to just about everyone. The same applies to computer storage. Keeping files on a floppy disk which could be taken with you was comforting, like taking you notes in a notebook. As comfort with computing devices grew, so did the move to hard drives, CDs, and finally documents in the cloud.

Automobile bodies first reflected carriages. As they evolved, these bodies came to enclose occupants and their design became based solely on the needs of the automobile itself.

Books also, have remained relatively unchanged until recently. The rise of electronic media and personal electronic devices have seen books move more and more to these displays. To bring people to these devices, electronic books have to look like paper books, with pages that turn like paper pages. As people adjust, electronic books will evolve, using hyperlinks and embedding of visual media, which will lead to further evolution. Books in fifty years could be as different to books of today as automobiles of the early 1900s are to today’s cars.

How does all of this apply to education? Education is moving forward slowly, in fits and starts. There is no clear path for it to take. A jump too far or too fast will not be popular to most people. What is understandable and comfortable will need to be built upon. There are a few trends that are being built upon and, perhaps, need to be extended.

Knowledge is now much more accessible to everyone. As an old colleague was fond of saying, “teachers have moved from being the sage on the stage to the guide on the side.” All educators should keep this close to their hearts. The day of 45 minutes or more of lecture are over. Students need to be involved in their learning.

Distance learning will become more prevalent. Classes will become a mixture of face-to-face and online interaction. Classes will not cease when the bell rings. Students will no longer be passive learners, a boon for effective evaluation.

The end of high-stakes testing will occur in the (hopefully) near future. High-states testing is a political tool with limited educational value. Evaluation should be ongoing and demonstrable through real-world application. Currently, project-based learning appears to have the inside track toward this sort of evaluation.

So, what is a teacher who is trying to survive these tumultuous times to do? Get on Twitter and find a group of people to follow. Start following blogs of people who you like and who can provide you with the information it takes to survive teaching in the 21st century. What you are really doing is developing a Personal Learning Network (PLN). Learn what the trends in education are. Be innovative in class. Share with and influence your colleagues. Become a lifelong learner. 

I’ve been reading more and more using my iPad and I’m becoming convinced paper books will slowly cease to be relevant. This is not a decision that I’ve made lightly, I’ve been a consumer of books for years and my personal library consisted of several hundred volumes (more on this later on). However, after I purchased an iPad, I’ve been won over by the convenience of ebooks.

I’ve always liked gadgets, and in the late 1999s I purchased a Palm device. Shortly thereafter, I read my first ebook. The experience was okay, but I preferred paper books. When Apple came out with the iPod Touch I again read several ebooks and, although my colleagues and friends chided me and wondered how I could read on such a tiny screen, the experience was much improved. Nevertheless, I found myself reading more and more on my iPod Touch and the experience was not bad at all.

When the iPad was announced, I ordered one and received it the first day it was available. Almost immediately, I found the experience of reading on it as enjoyable as reading paper books. I have a folder of ebook apps and have read numerous books on them. In fact, over the course of the past two years, I’ve purchased only a few paper books, and those were primarily professional books. I thoroughly enjoy having my books with me on my iPad or, when traveling, on my iPhone. 

When I found my local library lends electronic books, I downloaded the software (Overdrive) and now have a queue of books waiting to read. As a recently retired educator - it’s great! 

We’ve been planning our retirement move to Florida and that has meant downsizing. I’ve sold off three-fourths of my library, keeping a few books I treasure, and I really haven’t missed them. With the rise of better screens and e-ink devices, the future of ebooks seems secure and that of paper books will continue to shrink. 

The Horizon Report is issued yearly by the New Media Consortium, an organization whose purpose is to spur discussion and innovation of edtech in schools, universities, and museums. Each year, the group releases a report for each of the three constituencies, titled the Horizon Report. The 2012 Horizon Report for Higher Education has just been released. The reports for secondary education and museums will follow.

The basic outline of all three reports will be the same, just the specifics will be tailored to each constituency. I have downloaded the 2012 report for higher education and worked my way through most of it. There is an executive summary for a quick overview, then three main parts. 

The first part is a look at look at technologies whose time to adoption is seen as one year or less. The two areas of focus this year are Mobile Apps and Tablet Computing. After a discussion of each area, there are links to examples of the area in practice and then links for further reading. In the past I have found these links valuable in generating ideas I could integrate into my own teaching.

The next section of the report focuses on technologies with a time to adoption of two to three years. This year’s focus is on Game-Based Learning and Learning Analytics. I started teaching before the computer game craze took root, but the idea of game-based learning is very intriguing to me. Learning analytics seems to be the logical progression of the data-driven decision-making movement of the last ten years. 

The final part of the Horizon Report examines technologies which might have an impact on education with a time to adoption of four to five years. The two areas mentioned are Gesture-Based Computing and the Internet of Things. Gesture-based computing reminds me of a TED talk, by Patty Maes, as well as playing Wii games with my daughter’s family. I am excited to see how this technology can be integrated into education. The Nest thermostat reminds me of the beginning of what the internet of things could become, and it is very exciting. I’ll leave it to better minds than mine to figure out how to integrate it into education.

Take the time to download and look at the Horizon Report 2012. Join the New Media Consortium, and add it to your list of edtech resources.

Students show their schedule and receive an iPad (or e-reader of some sort) preloaded with the books they need. At the end of the semester, students turn in their iPad, or take it in to be reloaded, with the new semester’s books. The school would own the devices, eliminating the question of whether students can afford them.

I know there are a lot of questions about such a plan and I don’t have all the answers, yet the idea intrigues me. Would they be affordable for schools and school districts? Well, having purchased textbooks for our department for many years, textbook prices are now around $100 per book. If ebooks cost significantly less per unit, then the money for e-readers could be absorbed from the savings. Repairs for broken e-readers. I’m not sure how to handle that one. Just food for thought.

The last few years in education have seen teachers and their unions under attack, the rise of an alternative teaching force with Teach For America, charter schools being touted over public schools, and legislation which indicates there is a perceived crisis in education. Has a tipping point been achieved? Will education in the rest of the 21st century be radically different than what we know today? Will it be a better education than what we have today?

For the past several years, teachers have been under attack, first by conservatives, but by the Obama administration as well. Not only have teachers been characterized as the least able of university students, they have been castigated as being overpaid, having benefits which are better than the average worker, and having a work day and work year which are both shorter than what their compensation should demand. Let’s take these claims to task. 

Like any job, there are people who become teachers who are not cut out for the role. Teaching demands a command of subject matter, pedagogy, empathy, and self-control. In my 35 year career I’ve seen numerous people hired, and many leave, either voluntarily, or by termination. Some of these people did not have the subject matter knowledge to teach the courses they were hired for. Others did not have the patience or personality to work with adolescents. Once we hired two teachers with doctorates. Neither lasted more than three years. One spent most of her time complaining about student work habits, the other never connected with students on a personal level. As stated previously, command of subject matter is only one component necessary for a successful teacher. 

In my state (Ohio) teachers receive a contract for around 180 days of work. Teachers don’t get paid for summers or holidays. There is not “paid vacation” for teachers. The law has created a step system for teacher pay, the purpose of which is to prevent arbitrary decisions by administrators and school boards as to who should get a raise or not. Recently, there has been a cry for merit pay, and perhaps compensation based on a value-added score calculated by how much improvement students have made on high-stakes tests while in a teacher’s class. Both these ideas are flawed, merit pay again raises the issue of arbitrary decisions as to who gets compensated, and value-added bases pay on student performance without factoring in the outside forces which impact student performance. Students are not widgets. Flawed widgets are thrown out, flawed students are not.

Teacher pay and benefits are negotiated. Ohio has a collective bargaining law. Teachers are unionized, and pay in Ohio is higher than the national average, yet also varies greatly from well-paid suburban school districts to rural school districts where pay and benefits are much less. Local property taxes constitute the majority of funding for public schools and thus explains the disparity among districts. A state supreme court decision declared this method of funding schools unfair, and thus unconstitutional, but the state legislature has chosen to ignore this decision.

Teacher unions have been under withering attack over the course of the past few years. They are seen as seeking to maintain the status quo over what is good for students. Yes, the purpose of a union is to advance, and protect, the needs of its members. Without unions, teachers would not receive the compensation they, at present, receive. Health care benefits would be slashed, and tenure would be gutted. Tenure is misunderstood by those outside the education profession. Tenure gives teachers due process rights, that is all. It is not job security for life as the pundits claim. Not all teachers receive tenure, it is not a right. Teachers know they need protection from vindictive administrators and angry parents. If teachers are to be involved in educational change (and they should be), then tenure is needed to allow them to voice their concerns and argue courses of action. 

To save money, the pundits have recently been suggesting that older teachers are less in touch with students and therefore should be the first to go in the event of layoffs. These critics even suggest that there is little difference in the results acquired by novice teachers and veterans. A teacher, like a worker in any profession, is a continuous learner. As teaching involves knowledge acquisition, a veteran teacher will have years of, not only accrued subject knowledge, but understanding of adolescent learning and how to best teach a subject to students of a particular age. This knowledge and understanding does not happen overnight, it is acquired through experience and observation as well as judicious study. 

Teach For America was founded to recruit recent college graduates to teach in low income schools, so the country’s future leaders could understand, and help eliminate the educational gap caused by poverty. Recently, the organization has been criticized for allowing itself to be used to replace traditional, and more experienced, teachers. Five weeks of training, and a two year commitment do not make a well-trained teacher. There may be a place for this organization, but not as a way to break the back of teacher unions.

Charter schools also had their beginnings as a way to experiment with various educational ideas. Unfortunately, some saw them as a way to make money, and now we have for-profit charters, getting public money, and producing dubious educational returns for their communities. Unfortunately, those who want to destroy public education are embracing charters as a way to privatize education - and make money as well.

The battle over public education has long been fought in Washington, D.C. From the Sputnik scare of the 1950s and 1960s, to A Nation At Risk in the early 1980s, to No Child Left Behind in the early 21st century, and now Race To The Top with the current administration, the nation’s culture wars have been fought over how and what to teach our nation’s children. Will we allow school prayer? Will we teach creationism? How much stress should be placed on science and math? Should there be a national curriculum? Educators often wring their hands as they listen to some of the proposed answers to these questions being bandied about by non-educators.

Will education in the coming years be fundamentally different than that during the past thirty or so years. My guess is that it will be, and the changes will come faster and faster. The reason - technology integration. The rise of social media and the ubiquity of computer-enabled devices (not just PCs and laptops) will see a shift in instruction and the ability to acquire information that will force education to become something much different than we have now. An educational Rubicon has been crossed. There will be a wealth of providers of educational opportunity in the K-16 range. Schools will continue to exist, but they will not require students to attend for seven or eight hours every day. The reliance on high-stakes testing will end. Portfolios and project-based education will rise in importance. Charter schools will continue to exist. The role of teachers and their unions will need to adjust to remain viable. Will this new education be better that what we have today? We will have to wait and see. It is going to be a brave new world out there. 

Should states provide funding for a college education for their citizens? The question was raised as I read through my news articles this morning. It seems more and more the answer is simply, “no,” students (and their parents) can pay. This rationale troubles me in several ways.

There is the argument that, while states and local municipalities do provide K-12 education for all citizens, not everyone will go to college and therefore states cannot provide a college education that is 100% paid for by the state. This would be unfair. A counter argument would be that educated citizens do benefit the state, and everyone within it. According to the 2001 census, the average income for households headed by a college graduate was $97,593, while for households headed by a high school graduate it was $53,246. States benefit in several ways from this, not the least from the increased tax revenues paid by wealthier citizens.

I’ve heard it said that college is not a right. Perhaps it should be. We’ve been providing student-citizens with a K-12 education for decades. The world has changed. A high school diploma once meant a person could go out and get a well-paying job in industry. Those days are gone. The skills needed both today and in the foreseeable future are more complex. Technical skills take longer to learn. One of the benefits of a college education is learning how to learn and how to solve problems in constructive ways. College graduates are able to adapt more easily to change and to adjust careers as necessary.

Today’s conservatives might argue that states paying for college education is simply more big government. If people want to pursue a college education, let them, but they should pay their own way. I worry the rising cost of college is pricing higher education out of reach of the middle class. Twenty yeas ago, states tended to subsidize nearly two-thirds of the cost of an education at a public university for in-state students. Today, that subsidy is often less that fifty percent. Education is the easiest way to close the gap between the poor and the middle class. Well-educated citizens become participating citizens and buy into our concept of a democratic society.

Finally, the argument is that states are in a budget squeeze, and one way to balance budgets is to reduce costs for education. This is short-sighted and only serves to harm states in the long run. K-12 and higher education have been hurt by politicians embrace of high-stakes testing at the expense of real education reform, including taking into account the affects of poverty in the educability of children. Begin to eliminate poverty and properly fund education at all levels and only them will we see the benefits of K-16 education on society.