Tag Archives: Technology

Lumina Foundation study: U.S. not producing enough college grads for projected jobs

18 Jun

 

Moi wrote in Many NOT ready for higher education:

 

Whether or not students choose college or vocational training at the end of their high school career, our goal as a society should be that children should be “college ready.” David T. Conley writes in the ASCD article, What Makes a Student College Ready?

 

The Big Four

 

A comprehensive college preparation program must address four distinct dimensions of college readiness: cognitive strategies, content knowledge, self-management skills, and knowledge about postsecondary education.

 

Key Cognitive Strategies

 

Colleges expect their students to think about what they learn. Students entering college are more likely to succeed if they can formulate, investigate, and propose solutions to nonroutine problems; understand and analyze conflicting explanations of phenomena or events; evaluate the credibility and utility of source material and then integrate sources into a paper or project appropriately; think analytically and logically, comparing and contrasting differing philosophies, methods, and positions to understand an issue or concept; and exercise precision and accuracy as they apply their methods and develop their products.

 

Key Content Knowledge

 

Several independently conducted research and development efforts help us identify the key knowledge and skills students should master to take full advantage of college. Standards for Success (Conley, 2003) systematically polled university faculty members and analyzed their course documents to determine what these teachers expected of students in entry-level courses. The American Diploma Project (2004) consulted representatives of the business community and postsecondary faculty to define standards in math and English. More recently, both ACT (2008) and the College Board (2006) have released college readiness standards in English and math. Finally, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (2008), under mandate of state law, developed one of the first and most comprehensive sets of state-level college readiness standards….

 

Key Self-Management Skills

 

In college, students must keep track of massive amounts of information and organize themselves to meet competing deadlines and priorities. They must plan their time carefully to complete these tasks. They must be able to study independently and in informal and formal study groups. They must know when to seek help from academic support services and when to cut their losses and drop a course. These tasks require self-management, a skill that individuals must develop over time, with considerable practice and trial-and-error.

 

Key Knowledge About Postsecondary Education

 

Choosing a college, applying, securing financial aid, and then adjusting to college life require a tremendous amount of specialized knowledge. This knowledge includes matching personal interests with college majors and programs; understanding federal and individual college financial aid programs and how and when to complete appropriate forms; registering for, preparing for, and taking required admissions exams; applying to college on time and submitting all necessary information; and, perhaps most important, understanding how the culture of college is different from that of high school….

 

Students who would be the first in their family to attend college, students from immigrant families, students who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups traditionally underrepresented in college, and students from low-income families are much more easily thrown off the path to college if they have deficiencies in any of the four dimensions. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/What-Makes-a-Student-College-Ready%C2%A2.aspx

 

The difficult question is whether current testing accurately measures whether students are prepared for college. https://drwilda.com/2012/10/06/many-not-ready-for-higher-education/

 

The Lumina Founation has released the report A Stronger Nation through Higher Education which is skeptical that the U.S. is producing the number of college graduates for future economic success.

 

Here is the press release from the Lumina Foundation about

 

New report shows improved pace of college attainment is still not enough to meet future workforce needs; massive racial achievement gaps continue

 

June 13, 2013

Lumina Foundation Announces 10 New Targets for Moving America Closer to Goal 2025

WASHINGTON, DC, June 13, 2013—As the demand for skilled workers continues to grow, a new report released today by Lumina Foundation shows that the rate of college attainment is steadily improving across America. Unfortunately, the pace of progress is far too modest to meet future workforce needs. The report also finds massive and ongoing gaps in educational achievement—gaps tied to race, income and other socioeconomic factors—that must be addressed.

According to the report, A Stronger Nation through Higher Education, 38.7 percent of working-age Americans (ages 25-64) held a two- or four-year college degree in 2011—the most recent year for which data are available. That figure is up from 2010, when the rate was 38.3 percent and from 2009, when the rate was 38.1 percent. The Stronger Nation report measures progress toward Goal 2025 which is a national effort to increase the percentage of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by the year 2025.

Read the full report

A Stronger Nation Through Higher Education 2013

218 pgs. | 8.8M | PDF

“Research tells us that 65 percent of U.S. jobs will require some form of postsecondary education by 2020, yet fewer than 40 percent of Americans are educated beyond high school today,” said Jamie P. Merisotis, president and chief executive officer of Lumina. “Our pace of attainment has been too slow and America is now facing a troubling talent gap. If we intend to address this problem, new strategies are required and a heightened sense of urgency is needed among policymakers, business leaders and higher education institutions across our nation.”

Achievement Gaps by Race Continue

Educational success has historically been uneven across America, particularly among, low-income, first-generation students, racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants and adults who are underrepresented among college students and graduates. The Stronger Nation report shows that degree attainment rates among adults (ages 25-64) in the U.S. continue to be woefully unbalanced, with 59.1 percent of Asians having a degree versus 43.3 percent of whites, 27.1 percent of blacks, 23.0 of Native Americans and 19.3 of Hispanics.

As worrisome as those differentials are, there is an even more troubling trend in the data regarding young adults (ages 25-29) who serve as a leading indicator of where the nation’s higher education attainment rates are headed overall. The highest attainment rate for 25- to 29-year old Americans is among Asians at 65.6 percent, followed by non-Hispanic whites at 44.9 percent. Then, the bottom drops out with an attainment rate for young African-Americans at 24.7 percent, for Hispanics at 17.9 percent and for Native Americans at 16.9 percent.

“This is an intolerable situation,” said Merisotis. “We certainly must close these gaps to meet the attainment levels that our nation needs. But the fact that these racial achievement differentials even exist must be rejected on both moral and economic grounds, given the increasingly severe consequences that come with not having a degree beyond high school. Our democracy and our economy are ill-served by a system that fails to effectively tap all of our available talent.”

New Strategies for Reaching Goal 2025

Earlier this year, Lumina released a new Strategic Plan that outlines how the Foundation will work over the next four years to help move the country closer to reaching Goal 2025. The plan includes strategies to: 1) design and build a higher education system for the 21st century, and 2) mobilize employers, policymakers, institutions, state and metro leaders and others to better position America for success in the knowledge economy.

The strategies for designing and building a 21st century higher education system focus on: creating new models of student financial support; developing new higher education business and finance models, and creating new systems of quality credentials and credits defined by learning and competencies rather than time.

The mobilization strategies focus on: building a social movement to support increased attainment in America; working with employers, metro areas and regions to encourage broader adoption of Goal 2025; advancing state and federal policy for increased attainment, and mobilizing higher education institutions and systems to increase the adoption of data- and evidence-based policies, partnerships and practices.

“The strength of our nation—or any nation—is its people, the sum total of talents, skills and abilities inherent in its citizenry,” said Merisotis. “America needs a bigger and more talented workforce to succeed, but we cannot expect our citizens to meet the demands of the 21st century without a 21st century education. That’s why we are working to mobilize more stakeholders to commit to achieving this 60 percent college-attainment goal. And it’s why we are working to design and build a new system of higher education that is grounded in quality and is flexible and affordable enough to properly serve the needs of students, employers and society at large.”

We cannot expect our citizens to meet the demands of the 21st century without a 21st century educationtweet this

To measure progress toward Goal 2025 in the near term, Lumina has established 10 specific achievement targets for 2016 that will guide the Foundation’s work. They include:

  • 55 percent of Americans will believe that increasing higher education attainment is necessary to the nation. (2012 baseline = 43 percent)

  • 67.8 percent of students will pursue postsecondary education directly from high school. (2012 baseline = 62.5 percent)

  • 1.3 percent of older adults will be first-time participants in higher education. (2012 baseline = 1.1 percent)

  • 3.3 million Hispanic students will be enrolled in college. (2012 baseline = 2.5 million)

  • 3.25 million African-American students will be enrolled in college. (2012 baseline = 2.7 million)

  • 22 million students will be enrolled in college across America. (2012 baseline = 18.1 million)

  • 800,000 fewer working-age adults (ages 25-64) will have some college and no degree (2012 baseline = 36.3 million; 2016 target = 35.5 million)

  • 60 percent of first-time, full-time students will complete college within six years. (2012 baseline = 54 percent)

  • 48 percent of adult learners (ages 25-64) will complete higher education. (2012 baseline = 45 percent)

  • 3 million will be the number of associate and bachelor’s degrees awarded annually. (An increase of 500,000 per year based on 2012 baseline of 2.5 million)

Key Tables from A Stronger Nation through Higher Education Report:

Top 10 states by degree attainment in 2011:

  • MA—50.8%

  • CO—47.0%

  • MN—46.6%

  • CT—46.4%

  • VT—46.2%

  • NH—45.8%

  • MD—45.4%

  • NJ—45.1%

  • VA—45.0%

  • ND—44.7%

Top 10 MSAs by degree attainment in 2011 (among the 100 most-populated MSAs):

Madison, WI 54.81%
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV 54.73%
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH 54.25%
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA 54.15%
Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT 52.86%
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA 52.76%
Raleigh-Cary, NC 52.64%
Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI 50.65%
Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY 49.27%
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA 48.28%

Facts about postsecondary attainment in America

Bottom 10 states by degree attainment in 2011: State

41. IN—33.8%

42. OK—33.0%

43. TN—32.1%

44. AL—31.9%

45. KY—30.8%

46. MS—30.3%

47. NV—30.0%

48. AR—28.2%

49. LA—27.9%

50. WV—27.8%

Bottom 10 MSAs by degree attainment in 2011 (among the 100 most-populated MSAs):

Lancaster, PA 31.74%
Las Vegas-Paradise, NV 29.59%
Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA 29.38%
El Paso, TX 28.97%
Fresno, CA 27.90%
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA 27.20%
Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL 27.02%
Stockton, CA 26.75%
Bakersfield-Delano, CA 21.35%
McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX 21.21%

Lumina Foundation is an independent, private foundation committed to increasing the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates and other credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina’s outcomes-based approach focuses on helping to design and build an accessible, responsive and accountable higher education system while fostering a national sense of urgency for action to achieve Goal 2025.

Media contacts:

Lucia Anderson
Lumina Foundation
317.951.5316
landerson@luminafoundation.org

Michael Marker
VOX Global
317.902.2958
mmarker@voxglobal.com

 

– See more at: http://www.luminafoundation.org/newsroom/news_releases/2013-06-13.html#sthash.sE33uxCj.dpuf

 

 

K-12 education must not only prepare students by teaching basic skills, but they must prepare students for training after high school, either college or vocational. There should not only be a solid education foundation established in K-12, but there must be more accurate evaluation of whether individual students are “college ready.”

 

 

Related:

 

Helping community college students to graduate                    https://drwilda.com/2012/02/08/helping-community-college-students-to-graduate/

 

The digital divide affects the college application process https://drwilda.com/2012/12/08/the-digital-divide-affects-the-college-application-process/

 

College readiness: What are ‘soft skills’                               https://drwilda.com/2012/11/14/college-readiness-what-are-soft-skills/

 

Colleges rethinking who may need remedial education https://drwilda.com/2012/10/24/colleges-rethinking-who-may-need-remedial-education/

 

Where Information Leads to Hope ©     Dr. Wilda.com

 

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

 

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

 

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                           http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

 

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                                http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

 

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                             https://drwilda.com/

 

 

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The 05/29/13 Joy Jar

29 May

 

Moi is not a big cell phone user. She uses it on a need to use basis mainly because it is smarter than she is. She wanted to use the phone, but it wouldn’t work. Finally, she figured out that it wasn’t they battery or anything she did. The SIM card died or isn’t working. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is a working cell phone just in case.

“Right, my phone. When these things first appeared, they were so cool. Only when it was too late did people realize they are as cool as electronic tags on remand prisoners.”
David Mitchell, Ghostwritten

“Technology offers us a unique opportunity, though rarely welcome, to practice patience.”
Allan Lokos, Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living

But I’m acutely aware that the possibility of fraud is even more prevalent in today’s world because of the Internet and cell phones and the opportunity for instant communication with strangers.
Armistead Maupin

Email, instant messaging, and cell phones give us fabulous communication ability, but because we live and work in our own little worlds, that communication is totally disorganized.
Marilyn vos Savant

I think we have the attention span of a gnat. You know, with cell phones and Twitter.
Jeff Daniels

Apparently we love our own cell phones but we hate everyone else’s.
Joe Bob Briggs

“To be honest, I think cell phones were invented by the devil.”
Joe Hill, NOS4A2

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National Center on Education and the Economy report: High schools are not preparing students for community college

14 May

Moi wrote in Many NOT ready for higher education:

Whether or not students choose college or vocational training at the end of their high school career, our goal as a society should be that children should be “college ready.” David T. Conley writes in the ASCD article, What Makes a Student College Ready?

The Big Four

A comprehensive college preparation program must address four distinct dimensions of college readiness: cognitive strategies, content knowledge, self-management skills, and knowledge about postsecondary education.

Key Cognitive Strategies

Colleges expect their students to think about what they learn. Students entering college are more likely to succeed if they can formulate, investigate, and propose solutions to nonroutine problems; understand and analyze conflicting explanations of phenomena or events; evaluate the credibility and utility of source material and then integrate sources into a paper or project appropriately; think analytically and logically, comparing and contrasting differing philosophies, methods, and positions to understand an issue or concept; and exercise precision and accuracy as they apply their methods and develop their products.

Key Content Knowledge

Several independently conducted research and development efforts help us identify the key knowledge and skills students should master to take full advantage of college. Standards for Success (Conley, 2003) systematically polled university faculty members and analyzed their course documents to determine what these teachers expected of students in entry-level courses. The American Diploma Project (2004) consulted representatives of the business community and postsecondary faculty to define standards in math and English. More recently, both ACT (2008) and the College Board (2006) have released college readiness standards in English and math. Finally, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (2008), under mandate of state law, developed one of the first and most comprehensive sets of state-level college readiness standards….

Key Self-Management Skills

In college, students must keep track of massive amounts of information and organize themselves to meet competing deadlines and priorities. They must plan their time carefully to complete these tasks. They must be able to study independently and in informal and formal study groups. They must know when to seek help from academic support services and when to cut their losses and drop a course. These tasks require self-management, a skill that individuals must develop over time, with considerable practice and trial-and-error.

Key Knowledge About Postsecondary Education

Choosing a college, applying, securing financial aid, and then adjusting to college life require a tremendous amount of specialized knowledge. This knowledge includes matching personal interests with college majors and programs; understanding federal and individual college financial aid programs and how and when to complete appropriate forms; registering for, preparing for, and taking required admissions exams; applying to college on time and submitting all necessary information; and, perhaps most important, understanding how the culture of college is different from that of high school….

Students who would be the first in their family to attend college, students from immigrant families, students who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups traditionally underrepresented in college, and students from low-income families are much more easily thrown off the path to college if they have deficiencies in any of the four dimensions. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/What-Makes-a-Student-College-Ready%C2%A2.aspx

The difficult question is whether current testing accurately measures whether students are prepared for college. https://drwilda.com/2012/10/06/many-not-ready-for-higher-education/

Katherine Mangan reports in the Chronicle of Higher Education article, High Schools Set Up Community-College Students to Fail, Report Says:

Community colleges’ academic expectations are “shockingly low,” but students still struggle to meet them, in part because high-school graduation standards are too lax in English and too rigid in mathematics, according to a study released on Tuesday by the National Center on Education and the Economy.

Students entering community colleges have poor reading and writing skills and a shaky grasp of advanced math concepts that most of them will never need, the study found…. http://chronicle.com/article/High-Schools-Set-Up/139105/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Here is the press report from the National Center on Education and the Economy:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Emily Kingsland

May 7, 2013

(202) 379 -1800

ekingsland@ncee.org

High Schools Fail to Teach What Graduates Need to Succeed in Community Colleges, Instead Teaching What They Don’t Need

New report from the National Center on Education and the Economy is first to look at the literacy levels actually required for success in nation’s community colleges

WASHINGTON, DC — Students are failing to learn the basic math and English skills and concepts needed for success in community colleges, according to a new report from the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) entitled, What Does It Really Mean to Be College and Work Ready: The English and Mathematics Required by First Year Community College Students That’s the surprising and discouragingcentral conclusion of a groundbreaking two year study, which examined the skills and knowledge in mathematics and English literacy that high school graduates need to succeed in the first year of their community college programs.

“We were surprised how little math is used in first year community college courses, and what is used is mostly middle school math,” said Phil Daro, co-chair of the study’s Mathematics Panel and co-director in the development of the Common Core State Standards for mathematics. “Our system makes no sense for these students: even though so many students have a shaky understanding of the middle school mathematics they really need, high school courses spend most of these students’ time on topics not needed for their college programs.”

“The reading skills of our high school graduates are so low that most community college instructors do not expect their students to be able to read at the level of their textbooks,” said Catherine Snow, co-chair of the study’s English Panel and Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Their writing skills are so low that instructors rarely ask their students to write very much outside of their English composition classes, and, when they do, the writing they are asked to do is not very demanding.”

These are just a few of the key findings from the first study ever done that actually examines the level of mathematics and English literacy needed to succeed in the first year of study at our nation’s community colleges.

Roughly 45 percent of our nation’s undergraduates are attending community colleges, according to the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). About half of those students are training to go directly into the workforce and enter popular fields such as nursing, law enforcement, auto mechanics or education, while others are working to complete the first two years of a four year degree program. The report concludes that students who cannot succeed in the first year of a community college program are surely not ready for success in college or the workplace.

Most studies of course requirements in our colleges simply ask instructors what students need to know to be successful in their institutions, but that method is notoriously unreliable, because instructors typically respond to such surveys by telling the interviewer what they would like students to know, not what they actually need to know.

This study was conducted by NCEE in collaboration with a team of leading scholars and community college leaders. It analyzed the textbooks, papers and projects students are assigned; the tests they are given; and the grades they get on both. These materials were gathered from a set of nine popular and diverse career oriented programs in randomly selected community colleges across seven diverse states.

AACC urged educators at the secondary and post -secondary levels to read carefully the specific findings of the report and reevaluate their courses and materials to ensure they are meeting students’ needs at every stage of their educational paths. “This study emphasizes the critical importance of better aligning the entire pipeline to ensure all students are adequately prepared for college and careers in the 21st century,” said Walter Bumphus, president and CEO of AACC. Achieve President Michael Cohen pointed out that this report’s findings constitute a powerful argument for implementing the new Common Core State Standards for literacy in mathematics and English. “This very important report underscores the urgent need for states to implement the Common Core State Standards. If the CCSS were properly implemented, students would have the kind of mastery of middle school mathematics skills identified in this report as the most important math skills needed in the first year of community college. Similarly, the report makes it crystal clear why the CCSS English literacy standards stressed the need for great improvements in students’ ability to do non-fiction reading and writing.”

The reports’ authors concentrate their recommendations on the steps schools must take to enable more of their graduates to succeed in our community colleges, but also touch on what community colleges can do. Among the recommendations are the following:

! Make Algebra II a key course on just one of several mathematics paths to a high school diploma, eliminatingthe mandatory status it has in some states.

! Have most students spend more time on middle school mathematics rather than rushing toward Algebra I.

! Reconceive community college placement tests to align them with the mathematics students actually need to succeed in their first credit-bearing programmatic courses.

! Increase writing assignments across all high school courses, especially those that require the presentation of a logical argument and evidence to support claims.

! Have high school students read texts of greater complexity.

Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy said, “This report shows that our community colleges have shockingly low expectations of the students entering their institutions, because many perhaps most of our future nurses, EMT’s and auto mechanics haven’t mastered middle school mathematics and cannot read much of the material in their first year college textbooks even though they are only written at the 11th and 12th grade levels and a large fraction of our future four year college students have a very hard time

Citation:

NCEE has just released What Does It Really Mean to Be College and Work Ready?, a study of the English Literacy and Mathematics required for success in the first year of community college. On May 7th, during a day-long meeting, key education and policy leaders joined NCEE to discuss the results of the study and its implications for community college reform, school reform, teacher education, the common core state standards, and vocational education and the workplace.

Click here to watch the video of the event.

Helpful Links:

Download the Executive Summary

Download the Math Report

Download the English Report

Agenda

Speaker Biographies

Q&As

Summary of Findings

InCritical thinking is an essential trait of an educated person, moi said:

There is a great deal of dissatisfaction with the state of education in America. A lot of that dissatisfaction comes from the belief that the education system fails to actually educate children and to teach them critical thinking skills. The University of Maine at Augusta defines an educated person:

An educated person exhibits knowledge and wisdom; recognizes and respects the diversity of nature and society; demonstrates problem solving skills; engages in planning and managing practices; navigates the on-line world; writes and speaks well; acts with integrity; and appreciates the traditions of art, culture, and ideas. Developing these abilities is a life-long process. http://www.uma.edu/educatedperson.html

Essential to this definition is the development of critical thinking skills.

The Critical Thinking Community has several great articles about critical thinking at their site. In the section, Defining Critical Thinking:

A Definition
Critical thinking is that mode of thinking – about any subject, content, or problem – in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them.

The Result

A well cultivated critical thinker:

  • raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and
    precisely;

  • gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to
    interpret it effectively comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;

  • thinks open mindedly within alternative systems of thought,
    recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and

  • communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.

Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.  (Taken from Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools, Foundation for Critical Thinking Press, 2008). http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766

The question is how to teach critical thinking skills. David Carnes wrote the excellent Livestrong article, How to Build Critical Thinking Skills in Children. http://www.livestrong.com/article/167563-how-to-build-critical-thinking-skills-in-children/#ixzz1kB28AgFS

Related:

What the ACT college readiness assessment means                                            https://drwilda.com/2012/08/25/what-the-act-college-readiness-assessment-means/

Study: What skills are needed for ’21st-century learning?’                                      https://drwilda.com/2012/07/11/study-what-skills-are-needed-for-21st-century-learning/

ACT to assess college readiness for 3rd-10th Grades                                        https://drwilda.com/2012/07/04/act-to-assess-college-readiness-for-3rd-10th-grades/

Where information leads to Hope. ©                                 Dr. Wilda.com

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Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                      http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                             http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

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The 05/09/13 Joy Jar

9 May

 

Moi’s computer was down and out for several hours. Moi needed the rest. So, whatever. A computer these days is something one really notices when it is not there. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the return of moi’s computer.

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
Pablo Picasso

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
Joseph Campbell

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
Isaac Asimov

The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.
Sydney J. Harris

Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.
Louis Gerstner

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NEPC study: Virtual schools don’t deliver value to the taxpayers

7 May

Moi voiced her concern about virtual schools in Accountability in virtual schools:

Moi voiced her skepticism about for-profit online charter schools in Online for-profit K-12, good for bankers, bad for kids https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/online-for-profit-k-12-good-for-bankers-bad-for-kids/ : All children can learn. Stephanie Saul of the New York Times is reporting on the cynical operation of for-profit charter schools in the article, Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools which describes how the dreams of some children are being hindered. 

By almost every educational measure, the Agora Cyber Charter School is failing.

Nearly 60 percent of its students are behind grade level in math. Nearly 50 percent trail in reading. A third do not graduate on time. And hundreds of children, from kindergartners to seniors, withdraw within months after they enroll.

By Wall Street standards, though, Agora is a remarkable success that has helped enrich K12 Inc., the publicly traded company that manages the school. And the entire enterprise is paid for by taxpayers.

Agora is one of the largest in a portfolio of similar public schools across the country run by K12. Eight other for-profit companies also run online public elementary and high schools, enrolling a large chunk of the more than 200,000 full-time cyberpupils in the United States.

The pupils work from their homes, in some cases hundreds of miles from their teachers. There is no cafeteria, no gym and no playground. Teachers communicate with students by phone or in simulated classrooms on the Web. But while the notion of an online school evokes cutting-edge methods, much of the work is completed the old-fashioned way, with a pencil and paper while seated at a desk.

Kids mean money. Agora is expecting income of $72 million this school year, accounting for more than 10 percent of the total anticipated revenues of K12, the biggest player in the online-school business. The second-largest, Connections Education, with revenues estimated at $190 million, was bought this year by the education and publishing giant Pearson for $400 million.

The business taps into a formidable coalition of private groups and officials promoting nontraditional forms of public education. The growth of for-profit online schools, one of the more overtly commercial segments of the school choice movement, is rooted in the theory that corporate efficiencies combined with the Internet can revolutionize public education, offering high quality at reduced cost.

The New York Times has spent several months examining this idea, focusing on K12 Inc. A look at the company’s operations, based on interviews and a review of school finances and performance records, raises serious questions about whether K12 schools — and full-time online schools in general — benefit children or taxpayers, particularly as state education budgets are being slashed.

Instead, a portrait emerges of a company that tries to squeeze profits from public school dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher workload and lowering standards.

Current and former staff members of K12 Inc. schools say problems begin with intense recruitment efforts that fail to filter out students who are not suited for the program, which requires strong parental commitment and self-motivated students. Online schools typically are characterized by high rates of withdrawal.

Teachers have had to take on more and more students, relaxing rigor and achievement along the way, according to interviews. While teachers do not have the burden of a full day of classes, they field questions from families, monitor students’ progress and review and grade schoolwork. Complaints about low pay and high class loads — with some high school teachers managing more than 250 students — have prompted a unionization battle at Agora, which has offices in Wayne, Pa. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/education/online-schools-score-better-on-wall-street-than-in-classrooms.html?emc=eta1

The Illinois Online Network has a good synopsis of the pros and cons of online education at Strengths and Weaknesses of Online Learning  K-12 for profit schools exhibit many of the deficiencies of other for-profit schools. See, For-profit colleges: Money buys government, not quality for students, https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/for-profit-colleges-money-buys-government-not-quality-for-students/

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC)released a study which examined virtual schools.

Here is the press release from the National Education Policy Center:

As Online Elementary and Secondary Schools Expand, Academic Performance Lags 

New NEPC Study Finds Limited Oversight, Excessive Costs of Virtual Schools Drain Millions in Public Funds

Contact: 

Jamie Horwitz, 202/549-4921; jhdcpr@starpower.net
Alex Molnar, 480/797-7261; nepc.molnar@gmail.com

URL for this announcement: http://tinyurl.com/bpoxwmd

BOULDER, CO (May 2, 2013) –A national study, released today by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), offers a comprehensive review of 311 full-time virtual schools operating in the United States and finds serious and systemic problems with them.

University of Colorado Boulder Professor Alex Molnar, who edited Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2013: Politics, Performance, Policy, and Research Evidence, summed it up this way: “Even a cursory review of virtual schooling in the U.S. reveals an environment much like the legendary wild west. There are outsized claims, lagging performance, intense conflicts, lots of taxpayer money at stake, and very little solid evidence to justify the rapid expansion of virtual schools.” 

Lagging Performance – Soaring Enrollment

On the publicly-available metrics of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), virtual schools lag significantly behind traditional brick-and-mortar schools

In the 2010-2011 school year, 52 percent of brick-and-mortar district and charter schools met AYP, contrasted with 23.6 percent of virtual schools – a 28 percentage-point gap.  Virtual schools also enroll a far smaller percentage of low-income students, special education students, and English language learners than brick-and-mortar public schools.

“It now appears that early adopters of the virtual school model were largely home-schoolers who were used to studying alone and who generally had lots of parental guidance,” said Western Michigan University Professor Gary Miron. “As virtual schools have expanded, it appears that their performance has slipped dramatically.”

Currently virtual schools enroll more than 200,000 elementary and secondary students in 39 states and the District of Columbia.  McLean, Virginia- based K12 Inc. is by far the largest private operator in this sector. 

Expansion Driven by Lobbying and Advertising Rather than Student Success

Despite virtual schools’ track record of students falling behind their peers academically or dropping-out at higher rates, states and districts continue to expand virtual schools and online offerings to students. 

Publicly-funded virtual school expansion appears to be driven by lobbying and advertising dollars.  It is not justified by the research evidence, nor is it governed by thoughtful policy.

Columbia University Professor Luis Huerta, another of the report’s authors, noted that,  “In the past two years a number of states, including Wisconsin, Oregon, Louisiana, and Michigan, either raised or eliminated enrollment caps for full-time virtual schools.”   Co-author Jennifer King Rice, a University of Maryland professor, points out that at the same time,  ”None of those states passed legislation strengthening accountability and oversight.”

High Cost to Taxpayers

The overall cost to taxpayers for lackluster virtual schools has been significant.  Despite incurring much lower costs than brick-and-mortar schools, virtual school operators receive the same allocation as charter schools that pay for buildings, desks, textbooks, and other costs associated with more traditional school settings.

The consistently poor performance of full-time virtual schools makes it imperative to know more about these schools. Stanford University Professor Emeritus Larry Cuban, who contributed a review of current research knowledge on virtual education to the NEPC report and has long followed education technology issues, explained: “The current climate of elementary and secondary school reform that promotes uncritical acceptance of any and all virtual education innovations is not supported by educational research. A model that is built around churn is not sustainable; the unchecked growth of virtual school is essentially an education tech bubble.”

Recommendations

The authors of the NEPC report conclude that continued rapid expansion of full-time cyber schools is unwise. More research is needed, and to enable such research, state oversight agencies need to require more, and better refined, data. Financial controls and funding unique to cyber schools need to be established. 

The NEPC report Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2013: Politics, Performance, Policy, and Research can be found on the web at http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/virtual-schools-annual-2013.

Moi wrote in Should ‘Enron’ weasels be trusted with K-12 education?

The debate currently going on in society is whether education is a “public good.”

The Business Dictionary defines a “public good.”

public good

Definition

An item whose consumption is not decided by the individual consumer but by the society as a whole, and which is financed by taxation.

A public good (or service) may be consumed without reducing the amount available for others, and cannot be withheld from those who do not pay for it. Public goods (and services) include economic statistics and other information, law enforcement, national defense, parks, and other things for the use and benefit of all. No market exists for such goods, and they are provided to everyone by governments. See also good and private good
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/public-good.html#ixzz2DgXFJz5j

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize economist wrote KNOWLEDGE AS A GLOBAL PUBLIC GOOD:

This paper combines two concepts developed over the past quarter of century: the concept of global public goods and the notion of knowledge as a global public good.[3]

A public good has two critical properties, non-rivalrous consumption–the consumption of one individual does not detract from that of another–and non-excludability–it is difficult if not impossible to exclude an individual from enjoying the good. Knowledge of a mathematical theorem clearly satisfies both attributes: if I teach you the theorem, I continue to enjoy the knowledge of the theorem at the same time that you do. By the same token, once I publish the theorem, anyone can enjoy the theorem. No one can be excluded. They can use the theorem as the basis of their own further research. The “ideas” contained in the theorem may even stimulate others to have an idea with large commercial value.

Non-rivalrousness

The fact that knowledge is non-rivalrous–there is a zero marginal cost from an additional individual enjoying the benefits of the knowledge–has a strong implication. Even if one could exclude someone from enjoying the benefits of knowledge, it would be undesirable to do so because there are no marginal cost to sharing its benefits. If information is to be efficiently utilized, it cannot be privately provided as efficiency implies charging a price of zero—the marginal cost of another individual enjoying the knowledge. However, at zero price, only knowledge that could be produced at zero cost would be produced.

To be sure, to acquire and use knowledge, individuals may have to expend resources–just as they might have to expend resources to retrieve water from a public lake. That there may be significant costs associated with transmission of knowledge does not in any way affect the public good nature of knowledge itself: private providers can provide the “transmission” for a charge reflecting the marginal cost of transmission while at the same time, the good itself can remain free. http://p2pfoundation.net/Knowledge_as_a_Global_Public_Good

See, Education is a public good, not a consumer good http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/lifestyle/2012/07/education-public-good-not-consumer-good

Should ‘Enron’ weasels be trusted with K-12 education?

Moi wrote in Accountability in virtual schools:

Technology can be a useful tool and education aid, BUT it is not a cheap way to move the masses through the education system without the guidance and mentoring that a quality human and humane teacher can provide. Education and children have suffered because cash sluts and credit crunch weasels have destroyed this society and there is no one taking them on. They will continue to bleed this society dry while playing their masters of the universe games until they are stopped. https://drwilda.com/2012/03/18/accountability-in-virtual-schools/

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TED teams up with PBS: What is TED?

6 May

Elizabeth Jensen reports in the New York Times article, TED Teams Up With PBS on Ideas for Education:

Television viewers — even those who watch the more sober-minded PBS — are generally not keen on sitting through long speeches. But TED, the nonprofit group that sponsors conferences on ideas, thinks it has found a way to bring its signature 18-minute talks to a TV audience that may not have found them on the Web or through mobile apps.

In its first television foray, TED has joined forces with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the New York public broadcaster WNET for a one-hour special, “TED Talks Education,” to be broadcast on PBS on Tuesday. If it is successful, the program could become a template for future joint projects, said Juliet Blake, one of the show’s executive producers and the TED official charged with bringing the conferences to television.

The program was 18 months in the making, a short time for public broadcasting but long for TED, which is accustomed to the more immediate online world. Other suitors have also sought to do TED television projects, Ms. Blake said, but “to reach the audience we want to reach, public television was the place.”

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting paid for the show’s $1 million costs under the auspices of an initiative that addresses the high school drop-out problem in the United States. “It was the perfect marriage of ideas that matter and our core value of education,” said Patricia Harrison, the corporation’s chief executive. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/business/media/ted-partners-with-pbs-for-education-program.html?ref=education&_r=0

That prompted moi to ask, what is TED?

This is how TED describes itself at its site:

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference on the West Coast each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.

The two annual TED conferences, on the North American West Coast and in Edinburgh, Scotland, bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less).

On TED.com, we make the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 1400 TED Talks are now available, with more added each week. All of the talks are subtitled in English, and many are subtitled in various languages. These videos are released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

Our mission: Spreading ideas.

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. This site, launched April 2007, is an ever-evolving work in progress, and you’re an important part of it. Have an idea? We want to hear from you.

The springtime TED Conference is held annually on the West Coast and simulcast at a nearby city. The breadth of content includes science, business, the arts and the global issues facing our world. Over four days, 50 speakers each take an 18-minute slot, and there are many shorter presentations, including music, performance and comedy. There are no breakout groups. Everyone shares the same experience. It shouldn’t work, but it does. It works because all of knowledge is connected. Every so often it makes sense to emerge from the trenches we dig for a living, and ascend to a 30,000-foot view, where we see, to our astonishment, an intricately interconnected whole.

TEDActive is a curated community of curious and energetic leaders who share an immersive week of watching TED Talks and surprising experiences designed to inspire conversation, exchange and immediate action around ideas worth spreading — all in a creative and casual setting.

TEDGlobal is TED’s summer conference. The themes of the global conference are slightly more international in nature, and the full TED format is maintained, with a wide-ranging roster of speakers and performers over four days of TED mainstage sessions — plus the famous TED University, where attendees share their own knowledge with one another. TEDGlobal was held in Oxford, UK, in 2005, 2009 and 2010, and in Arusha, Tanzania, in 2007. TEDGlobal is now held annually in Edinburgh, Scotland.

TED also hosts events around the globe. TEDIndia was held in November 2009 in Mysore, India, celebrating and exploring the beckoning future of South Asia. TEDWomen was held in December 2010 in Washington, DC, asking the question: How are women and girls reshaping the future? TED also hosts smaller events around the globe, including many TED Salons, evening-length events with speakers and performers, and TED@ events, exploring a topic or location.

The TED Prize is awarded annually to an exceptional individual, and is designed to leverage the TED Community’s wide array of talents and resources. In 2012, the cash award was raised to $1 million to provide powerful seed funding for “A Wish to Inspire the World.” After several months of preparation, the wish is unveiled during a ceremony at the TED Conference. Over the life of the prize, wishes have led to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact.

TED Talks began as a simple attempt to share what happens at TED with the world. Under the moniker “ideas worth spreading,” talks were released online. They rapidly attracted a global audience in the millions. Indeed, the reaction was so enthusiastic that the entire TED website has been reengineered around TED Talks, with the goal of giving everyone on-demand access to the world’s most inspiring voices. As of November 2012, TED Talks have been viewed more than one billion times.

The TED Fellows program helps world-changing innovators from around the globe become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities. TED Fellows, TEDGlobal Fellows, and TED Senior Fellows are drawn from many disciplines that reflect the diversity of TED’s members: technology, entertainment, design, the sciences, the humanities, the arts, NGOs, business and more.

The TEDx program gives communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level. TEDx events are planned and coordinated independently.

The TED Open Translation Project brings TED Talks beyond the English-speaking world by offering subtitles, interactive transcripts and the ability for any talk to be translated by volunteers worldwide. We launched the project with 300 translations, 40 languages and 200 volunteer translators; now, there are more than 32,000 completed translations from our thousands-strong community. It’s an ambitious project that radically enhances the accessibility of the talks — for the hearing-impaired, for those who speak English as a second language, for search engines (which can now index the full transcript of a talk), and of course for the vast audience of non-English speakers worldwide.

Today, TED is best thought of as a global community. It’s a community welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world.                                                                                              http://www.ted.com/

See, About TED » Who we are » Who owns TED http://www.ted.com/pages/42

Here is information about the Sapling Foundation from Guidestar:

Basic Organization Information

SAPLING FOUNDATION

Physical Address:
New York, NY 10013 
EIN:
94-3235545
NTEE Category:
T Philanthropy, Voluntarism, and Grantmaking 
T99 (Other Philanthropy, Voluntarism, and Grantmaking Foundations N.E.C.) 
Year Founded:
1996 
Ruling Year:
1996 

Sign in or create an account to see this organization’s full address, contact information, and more!

http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/94-3235545/sapling-foundation.aspx

Nilofer Merchant writes in the Business Insider article, Is TED Elite?

Five common myths of TED and my take on them:

1. It’s Snobby.

To get into TED Long Beach, you have been picked because you are at the top of your game, in business, politics, education, social media, or whatever. There’s a definite snobbiness to that. I got rejected the first time I applied. So in some ways, this myth is completely true, yet I’ve already shared that being with this crowd has allowed me to stop playing small. Because most people are already established, the energy that many take into impressing each other is (largely) gone. That let’s us have more real conversations.

That said, you’d be surprised if you looked around at the demographics to see that there’s a vast range of economics, age, sex, and geographies represented at the TED Long Beach conference itself.That tells me TED is being intentional about the mix of who they bring together.

It has about 25% of the stage full of women, the highest I know of, besides an all-women’s conference. And, about 30% of the participants are women, which represents a pretty good mix. Not great – I’d love to see more gender parity, and this is a place of improvement that SheTalksTED advocates.

2. It’s pretentious.

This is a tough one.  I don’t believe the #TED organizers are not aiming to be pretentious. What I do see is a lot of people who come to TED for the first time, tweet comments from it to show their friends’ back home that they are at TED and their friend’s are not. I can see the temptation of tweeting that you are, say, sitting next to @ev, or Cameron Diaz, or Jeff Bezos or Tony Hsieh. But I think that’s the behavior that happens when first-timers are just a wee-bit impressed that they are “in” the club. Most people, thankfully, do not do this.  And perhaps if the new-bie understood the cultural norms of TED better, they would be more self-managing.  

The ideas developed in 18 minutes don’t lend themselves to tweetability. So sometimes we sound inane, as Jeff Jarvis was right to point out.

The actual curators of TED see what they do as a huge responsibility. One curator works in a sort of 24×7 way and is currently helping curate and support the folks in Cairo, and other Middle Eastern cities have neutral (non-political, non-sectarian) conversations that could truly change the world. He won’t get credit, or money, and neither is his goal. TED has come to represent the best ideas to change the world. His goal is truly to help change the world by the possibility of great ideas, being told well, and then discussed amongst that community. I don’t know about you, but I am so seriously hoping for what might happen. (I don’t have permission to share his story but I’m hoping he’ll forgive me)

3. There is no action out of it.

A good friend of mine, Michael Dila, said something a few years ago that has stuck with me: conversations are truly the only way in the world is changed, not technology. Conversation drives a new way of thinking, therefore new states of being, and the results that follow from that. The purpose of having loads of white spaces into the conference is to talk about ideas. I got into an interesting conversation with the head of WPP, one of the largest advertising organizations in the world about the situation in Nigeria, which was a deeply thoughtful idea about how to change an entire country known best for corruption. I don’t underestimate this discussion or what could happen if the head of WPP thinks about how to change the world with any of the ideas presented but without this venue, there is little likelihood most of us would spend 18 minutes thinking about Nigeria and corruption and how to influence the situation. Action follows from a shift in mindset. So I think TED creates context, the rest is up to us.

Second thing related to action. Bill Gates curated a session where he highlighted the Khan Academy. I didn’t know of this organization, founded by a former hedge fund creating YouTube videos, to help people learn. This was where I wanted people to tweet and many did. Education could be changed dramatically if this idea that Jennifer Pahlka captured: reverse homework and classwork, let them watch the videos at home and work on problems in class. So while no action was done right at that very moment, the 1000 or so conversations people had when they called home might just bring that idea into the system so that 100, 1000, or 10,000 educational institutions try something new in the next few years.

Of course, many other good efforts that flow from the TEDPrize to help create the change we wish to see in the world.  Architecture for Humanity, an amazing organization creating a more sustainable future, through the power of architectural design. They got hyper-boosters on their mission, by TED and the TED community.

3. Money goes to line their pockets.

One big myth is that Chris Anderson and the folks at TED must be doing this to be rich.  TED is owned by the Sapling Foundation, a 501(c)3 foundation and all the profits are reinvested in things like the TED Prize and distributing the talks free online. Chris Anderson doesn’t even take a salary (he made his money when he founded Business2.0) and he took over the TED conference and a short 7 years later he (and his team) opened it up with TEDEd, TEDFellows, TED.com, TEDx and so on.  I don’t know about you but I get pretty tired when I just think of all they have done…

Add to this mix, the 40 or so TEDFellows, a group of innovators, artists and change agents,  curated by Tom Reilly, from around the world,  to amplify the work of people who are working to change the world. All those Fellows need funding and support and the Sapling Foundation does that.  So if my measly thousands of dollars can help fuel access to ideas globally, I gladly give.

One important thing that Todd Lombardo helped me remember is the Sapling Foundation may not be transparent enough to ward off the critiques. How much money does it cost to run these events? Are all the amenities necessary? Palotta Teamworks who ran the AIDS Rides were registered as a for-profit company and weren’t transparent about the flow of capital through their organization… This ultimately ruined that company. I suspect the TED braintrust is working on this. 

4. You limit access to great ideas by limiting who gets to see it live.

While I love the immersive experience of TED Long Beach, I recognize there are many ways to experience it. Did you know there’s the simulcast at $500 where people can organizer a crowd of people in a high school gymnasium or one’s own living room (and split the costs to $1-25/head)? That means anyone who really wants to see it live, can.

Add to that, TEDActive and TEDx audiences and you can’t possibly say “it’s limited” cause “it” is now available to “us”. Laura Stein has set the TEDx licensee policy so that one **cannot** charge for attendance. Anybody could organize a TEDx, curate the best TED talks or local TEDxtalks and create something themselves. So, definitely not limited if you consider how accessible TED can be, if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves. 

TED talks are translated, for free, by people from around the world, allowing 15 million people to view the well-produced talks online. In some ways, by editing well, instead of streaming live, it creates a library of high-production content that will let it be seen by more people than the streaming version would allow.

5. Aren’t they Hypocritial?

Consider the Sarah Silverman episode of 2010. She did what she was asked to do, Her brand of humor, her story. But because some (Steve Case was notable visible around this) felt uncomfortable with what she did, she was viewed as banished by Chris and some of the TED community.

I was there when this happened, and frankly I thought Chris was very genuine when he posted he hated it, but then he retreated. I think he could have said he hated it, others liked it and that’s what TED is all about — many ideas being discussed. A slightly awkward moment on twitter got caught into a huff but perhaps it was a learning moment… I don’t know.

In Summary

While I do think TED is full of elite people of many disciplines, ages and economics, it is not, in my opinion, Elitist. I have never seen a more open, curious group of people who truly want to understand the world better and to hopefully apply their skills and talents to contribute their part to make the world a better place. I tweeted yesterday that a great audience allows a speaker to step up his/her game and deliver the best idea that could change the world, well. So having TED the conference is important in the mission.

I notice that most of the people who “hate” on TED are people who have never been, as demonstrated by Sarah Lacey, Umair Haque, and Jeff Jarvis. Sarah posted a one-sided argument from someone this week that could have benefitted from a little more journalism. Umair posted something that could have been much tighter given a simple Google search. And Jeff Jarvis, whom I respect, was definitely taking jabs from afar calling it a cult. Can I ask you to come? Or at least attend a simulcast. Robert Scoble did a very thoughtful critique of TED, called Elephants in the Room, after coming and I respect him for what he shared….. http://www.businessinsider.com/is-ted-elite-2011-3

It will be interesting to see where the PBS and TED collaboration goes.

Where information leads to Hope. ©                               Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

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Case study: Expanded learning time worked in one California school

25 Mar

Nora Fleming reports in the Education Week article, Expanded Learning Time Linked to Higher Test Scores:

Improved student performance was just one of the gains found after Tumbleweed Elementary School implemented an expanded learning time model, according to a new case study from the National Center of Time & Learning. The new brief is the second in a series released by the center that looks at schools that have recently added more time to the school day or year and seen early, positive gains.

Tumbleweed Elementary, a school in the Palmdale district north of Los Angeles, had been chronically underperforming since the 1990s and had not made Adequate Yearly Progress markers (mandated by No Child Left Behind) since the law was adopted in 2001, according to the brief. To improve the school, the district applied for (and won) a three-year, $6 million federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) in 2009, and crafted a turnaround strategy that focused on how added time could improve student outcomes and school climate.

The challenges were significant, says brief authors, especially given that the school was diverse, overcrowded, (with average class sizes hovering around 30 students), and had high rates of poverty (94 percent of students qualify for free and reduced price lunch).

To implement the new model, 41 new teachers were placed at the school, along with a new principal. The school added an hour to the day to be used for more math instruction, professional development time for teachers, and academic supports for students who were falling behind in particular subjects.

After the first year of implementation in 2010-2011, the school saw a 14 point gain in student English language arts scores and a 23 point gain in math on the California state standardized tests, and met Adequate Yearly Progress markers (NCLB) for the first time. There were small performance gains the following year as well, and overall, student behavior was said to significantly improve when new behavior and academic expectations were set.

However, the brief makes clear that the added time was not the sole reform that has supported improved school performance during this time period. The school also focused on improving the use of data to track students and measure their progress, creating student incentives to improve behavior and school climate, and placing an emphasis on the need for teacher collaboration.   http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/beyond_schools/2013/03/post_2.html

Fleming also reported on expanded learning’s limitations

In the Education Week article, Expanded Learning Time Not Always a Cure-All, Report Says, Fleming reported about the Educator Sector’s analysis of expanded learning time:

Interest has increased in adding more time to the school day, but many schools are ill equipped to put time to the most effective use for improving student and school outcomes, says a new report from Education Sector, a Washington-based think tank focused on education policy.

In the report, Education Sector looks at nationwide trends with schools implementing expanded learning models, in addition to focusing on schools that used ELT as a turnaround strategy to receive federal School Improvement Grants.

According to “What More Learning Time Can (and Can’t) Do for Turnarounds,” a few approaches to expand learning have been used nationwide: adding time to the formal school schedule, expanding learning outside the regular school schedule, and changing the way time is used doing the school day. Examples of some of the innovative ELT models that have been effective in improving outcomes, such as the TASC model in New York, the Citizen Schools model in Boston, and the Providence After School Alliance model in Providence, are also profiled in the report.

While adding time to the formal school schedule has gained more appeal, particularly for policymakers as a solution for improving schools, more schools are actually still expanding learning through after-school, summer, and other efforts not tied to the traditional classroom day.

But not all ELT efforts nationally compare with those mentioned above, says report author Elena Silva, who I spoke with for a story on ELT this past fall.

For expanded time to be most effective, she writes, schools should not focus on the time itself but on connecting added time to other reforms. More schools, especially those serving the neediest students, are looking to ELT as a quick fix for improvement, but do not put enough effort into the “comprehensive reform” of their schools that ELT must be a part of to be effective. This is often due to lack of know-how or lack of supports, staffing, funding, and so forth, the article says, but as more schools look to add time, they should err on the side of caution, particularly as federal policymakers push ELT as a solution to improving underperforming schools.    http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/beyond_schools/2012/04/interest_has_increased_in_adding.html

Here is the Education Sector summary: 

Off the Clock: What More Time Can (and Can’t) Do for School Turnarounds

Reports & Briefs |

Elena Silva

| March 29, 2012

Related Issue(s): Accountability and School Improvement, K-12 Education, Expanded Learning and School Time

If less time in the classroom is a cause of poor student performance, can adding more time be the cure? This strategy underlies a major effort to fix the nation’s worst public schools. Billions of federal stimulus dollars are being spent to expand learning time on behalf of disadvantaged children. And extended learning time (ELT) is being proposed as a core strategy for school turnaround.

But the hard truth is that there is far more research showing the ill effects of unequal time than research showing that ELT policies can make up the difference. What does the research really say about the impact of ELT on student learning, and how is it being implemented in our nation’s lowest-performing schools?

Off the Clock: What More Time Can (and Can’t) Do for School Turnarounds takes a look at the facts—and the myths—about school calendars and schedules. Extended learning time is one of the key elements of the federal government’s SIG program. More than 90 percent of the schools in the program have selected one of two options—”turnaround” and “transformation”—that mandate more time.

Education Sector reviewed data on how these schools are actually using “increased learning time” mandated by the federal government. The variations are wide—from adding minutes to the school day to providing after-school programs to shortening recess and lunch. Some approaches show clear potential, while others face considerable limits to implementation.

“New designs for extended time should be a part of the nation’s school improvement plans,” Silva concludes. “But policymakers and school leaders must recognize that successful schools use time not just to extend hours and days but to creatively improve how and by whom instruction is delivered. In the end, the ELT movement is more likely to leave a legacy of school and student success if it becomes less about time and more about quality teaching and learning.”

This report was funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Education Sector thanks the foundation for its support. The views expressed in the paper are those of the author alone.

Download Full Report

See:

Expanded Learning Time in Action: Initiatives in High-Poverty and High-Minority Schools and Districts                                                                                                http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2008/07/21/4734/expanded-learning-time-in-action/

In Good schools are relentless about basics: School day length, moi said:

Rosalind Rossi, education reporter for the Chicago Sun Times is reporting in the article, 2011 Illinois school report cards: Top schools have longer days.

The 10 highest-ranking suburban neighborhood elementary schools all have longer days for kids than the typical Chicago public school — but shorter ones than those advocated by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and city public school officials.

Chicago’s current typical 5-hour and 45-minute elementary school day — usually without a regular recess — looks paltry compared to a top-scoring 2011 suburban average of just under 6½ hours that includes daily recess, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis indicates.

However, Chicago’s proposed 7½-hour day would keep city elementary kids in school an hour more than their top-scoring suburban counterparts. Such a day is appealing even to some suburban parents.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/8452309-418/2011-illinois-school-report-cards-top-schools-have-longer-days.html

The Mid Continent Research for Education and Learning (McRel) has great information posted at its site about school day length.

According to McRel in the article, Extended School Days and School Years:

Does more time in school matter?

Several scholars have argued that simply extending school time in and of itself will not produce the desired results. Larry Cuban, a Stanford University professor of education, has argued for example that what matters most is not the quantity but the quality of time students and teachers spend together in the classroom (2008).

In our 2000 meta-analysis of the impact of school, teacher, and student-level variables on achievement, McREL concluded that student achievement can be strongly affected if schools optimize their use of instructional time.

In 1998 WestEd researchers Aronson et al. examined the research on time and learning and arrived at three conclusions:

  • There is little or no relationship between student achievement and the total number of days or hours students are required to attend school.
  • There is some relationship between achievement and engaged time, that subset of instructional time when students are participating in learning activities.
  • The strongest relationship exists between academic learning time and achievement.

However, in recent years some notable extended time initiatives have produced gains in test scores, graduation rates, and college attendance, including the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), which increases the amount of time students spend in school by nearly 60%, and Massachusetts 2020. Conversely, a $100 million effort in Miami to extend school days by one hour and add 10 days to the calendar produced no significant benefits.

http://www.mcrel.org/newsroom/hottopicExtendedTime.asp

The key seems to be longer time spent in instructional activities.                https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/good-schools-are-relentless-about-basics-school-day-length/

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Pew Research study: Digital divide adversely impacts low-income students

4 Mar

Moi wrote in The digital divide in classrooms:

One of the major contributors to poverty in third world nations is limited access to education opportunities. The Asian Development Bank has the best concise synopsis of the link between Education and Poverty For a good article about education and poverty which has agood bibliography, go to Poverty and Education, Overview As technology becomes more prevalent in society and increasingly is used in schools, there is talk of a “digital divide” between the haves and have-nots. Laurence Wolff and Soledad MacKinnon define the “digital divide” in their article, What is the Digital Divide?

The “digital divide,” inequalities in access to and utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT), is immense. http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/57449/digitaldivide.pdf

Access to information technology varies within societies and it varies between countries. The focus of this article is the digital divide in education. https://drwilda.com/2012/01/25/the-digital-divide-in-classrooms/ Betsy Isaacson reports about a Pew Internet Research study in the Huffington Post article, Digital Divide Is ‘Major Challenge’ In Teaching Low-Income Students, Survey Finds:

The survey, which reaffirms other findings on the digital divide, reveals that 56 percent of teachers who work with low-income students say that their students’ lack of access to digital technology is a “major challenge” to using quality online resources in their lessons. The Washington Post, which reported on the findings earlier Thursday, notes that 3 percent of low-income students have access to Internet at home, in contrast to 50 percent of higher-income students.

Those without available Internet at home may take creative measures to gain online access: Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported on low-income students with no home Internet who used the Wi-Fi provided by McDonald’s and Starbucks for schoolwork. Other students may use local public libraries for Internet access, but many libraries have closed due to a lack of funds. Those that remain may have computer time limits.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/digital-divide-low-income-students_n_2782528.html?utm_hp_ref=@education123

Here’s a summary of the Pew findings:

A survey of 2,462 Advanced Placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) teachers finds that digital technologies have helped them in teaching their middle school and high school students in many ways. At the same time, the internet, mobile phones, and social media have brought new challenges to teachers.

In addition, they report that there are striking differences in the role of technology in wealthier school districts compared with poorer school districts and that there are clear generational differences among teachers when it comes to their comfort with technology and its use in their classrooms.

Asked about the impact of the internet and digital tools in their role as middle and high school educators, these teachers say the following about the overall impact on their teaching and their classroom work:

  • 92% of these teachers say the internet has a “major impact” on their ability to access content, resources, and materials for their teaching
  • 69% say the internet has a “major impact” on their ability to share ideas with other teachers
  • 67% say the internet has a “major impact” on their ability to interact with parents and 57% say it has had such an impact on enabling their interaction with students

At the same time, 75% of AP and NWP teachers say the internet and other digital tools have added new demands to their lives, agreeing with the statement that these tools have a “major impact” by increasing the range of content and skills about which they must be knowledgeable.  And 41% report a “major impact” by requiring more work on their part to be an effective teacher. 

AP and NWP teachers bring a wide variety of digital tools into the learning process, including mobile phones, tablets, and e-book readers

The survey reveals the degree to which the internet and digital technologies, particularly mobile phones, suffuse teaching activities.  Laptops and desktops are central, but they note mobile technology use has also become commonplace in the learning process:

  • 73% of AP and NWP teachers say that they and/or their students use their mobile phones in the classroom or to complete assignments
  • 45% report they or their students use e-readers and 43% use tablet computers in the classroom or to complete assignments

Teachers most commonly use digital tools to have students conduct research online, which was the focus of an earlier report based on these data.1 It is also common for these teachers to have students access (79%) and submit (76%) assignments online.  More interactive online learning activities, such as developing wikis, engaging in online discussions, and editing work using collaborative platforms such as GoogleDocs, are also employed by some of the teachers in the sample. 

Overall, 62% of AP and NWP teachers feel their school does a “good job” supporting teachers’ efforts to bring digital tools into the learning process, and 68% say their school provides formal training in this area.  Still, 85% of these teachers seek out their own opportunities to learn new ways to effectively incorporate these tools into their teaching. 

Teachers worry about digital divides, though they are split about the impact of digital tools on their students

These teachers see disparities in access to digital tools having at least some impact on their students. More than half (54%) say all or almost all of their students have sufficient access to digital tools at school, but only a fifth of these teachers (18%) say all or almost all of their students have access to the digital tools they need at home.

Figure 1

Teachers of the lowest income students are the least likely to say their students have sufficient access to the digital tools they need, both in school and at home. In terms of community type, teachers in urban areas are the least likely to say their students have sufficient access to digital tools IN SCHOOL, while rural teachers are the least likely to say their students have sufficient access AT HOME. 

Overall, while many AP and NWP teachers express concern about growing disparities across schools and school districts, they are divided as to whether access to digital tools is leading to greater disparities among their students.  A large majority of these teachers (84%) agree to some extent with the statement that “Today’s digital technologies are leading to greater disparities between affluent and disadvantaged schools and school districts.”  However, asked whether today’s digital technologies are narrowing or widening the gap between the most and least academically successful students, 44% say technology is narrowing the gap and 56% say it is widening the gap.  

Teachers of the lowest income students experience the impact of digital tools in the learning environment differently than teachers whose students are from more affluent households

AP and NWP teachers’ experiences with using digital tools in their teaching vary in some notable ways depending on the socioeconomic status of the students they teach.  Among these findings:

  • 70% of teachers working in the highest income areas say their school does a “good job” providing teachers the resources and support they need to incorporate digital tools in the classroom, compared with 50% of teachers working in the lowest income areas

  • 73% of teachers of high income students receive formal training in this area, compared with 60% of teachers of low income students

  • 56% of teachers of students from higher income households say they or their students use tablet computers in the learning process, compared with 37% of teachers of the lowest income students

  • 55% of teachers of higher income students say they or their students use e-readers in the classroom, compared with 41%  teaching in low income areas

  • 52% of teachers of upper and upper-middle income students say their students use cell phones to look up information in class, compared with 35% of teachers of the lowest income students

  • 39% of AP and NWP teachers of low income students say their school is “behind the curve” when it comes to effectively using digital tools in the learning process; just 15% of teachers of higher income students rate their schools poorly in this area

  • 56% of teachers of the lowest income students say that a lack of resources among students to access digital technologies is a “major challenge” to incorporating more digital tools into their teaching; 21% of teachers of the highest income students report that problem

  • 49% of teachers of students living in low income households say their school’s use of internet filters has a major impact on their teaching, compared with 24% of those who teach better off students who say that

  • 33% of teachers of lower income students say their school’s rules about classroom cell phone use by students have a major impact on their teaching, compared with 15% of those who teach students from the highest income households…. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Teachers-and-technology/Summary-of-Findings.aspx

Citation:

How Teachers Are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms

Feb 28, 2013by Kristen Purcell, Alan Heaps, Judy Buchanan, Linda Friedrich

Summary of Findings

The best way to eliminate poverty is job creation, job growth, and job retention. The Asian Development Bank has the best concise synopsis of the link between Education and Poverty For a good article about education and poverty which has a good bibliography, go to Poverty and Education, Overview  There will not be a good quality of life for most citizens without a strong education system. One of the major contributors to poverty in third world nations is limited access to education opportunities. Without continued sustained investment in education, we are the next third world country.

Related:

Translating digital learning into K-12 education             https://drwilda.com/2012/11/18/translating-digital-learning-into-k-12-education/

Rural schools and the digital divide                        https://drwilda.com/2012/06/21/rural-schools-and-the-digital-divide/

The digital divide affects the college application process https://drwilda.com/2012/12/08/the-digital-divide-affects-the-college-application-process/

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Ryerson University Study: Some students are resisting to switch to e-texts

25 Feb

Moi is not the only OLD FART in existence. It seems some students are resisting the change to digital or e-texts. Rich Diehl writes in the Techcitement article, Studies Claim Students Prefer Traditional Paper Textbooks Over E-texts:

All of this begs the question, if e-books are cheaper than paper books, let alone more useful for allowing students to access them at will and have the added benefits of searchable text with other ancillaries, why is it that students not only don’t want them, but are going to some lengths to actively avoid them?

The answer seems to be that just possibly, at least in the case of education, the good old paper book retains several advantages over e-books that continue to make them a better tool for education. Despite the initial higher price paper books are seen as a better value for students.

Joanne McNeish, Mary Foster, Anthony Francescucci, and Bettina West of Canada’s Ryerson University have published “The Surprising Foil to Online Education: Why Students Won’t Give Up Paper Textbooks”, the results of a study looking into the continuing resistance toward e-texts in the fall 2012 issue of the Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education. Their study indicates that despite the supposed advantages of e-books, a large  majority of students participating in the study found paper texts preferable for studying. For the technology minded, the claims made by the study participants might seem counter-intuitive, yet the results consistently had subjects stating that paper texts were superior for highlighting, adding notes, bookmarking, and most surprisingly, search, which are all functions that e-books tout as reasons the platform is superior.

Another surprising finding is that the vast majority of subjects stated that the use of e-text was inconvenient compared to paper. Claiming that they felt constrained by the requirements for a specific brand of reader, the need for special software, and mentioned most often, the need for a power source, students consistently stated they felt that they had more control over their learning experience with paper then they did with e-text.

The Ryerson study also supports the conclusions of several other recent reports on the use of e-texts including Sheila O’Hare and Andrew Smith’s 2012 study for the Kansas Library Association of College and University Libraries, “The Customer is Always Right? Resistance from College Students to E-Books as Textbooks”.  O’Hare and Smith’s studies indicates that the brain processes how we read and learn from paper differently than we do for e-text. Research shows that in the case of paper, students tend to completely read a page, while in the case of e-text, the text is read more sporadically, with the student “dipping” into the text instead of full immersion. http://techcitement.com/hardware/tablet/studies-claim-students-prefer-traditional-paper-textbooks-over-e-texts/#.USxelvKjZPQ

See, Study: College Students Resist Idea of Switching to E-Books http://www.educationnews.org/technology/study-college-students-resist-idea-of-switching-to-e-books/

Citation:

Joanne McNeish, Mary Foster, Anthony Francescucci, Bettina West

The Surprising Foil to Online Education: Why Students Won’t Give Up Paper Textbooks

Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education, Volume 20, Issue 3, Fall 2012

http://www.mmaglobal.org/JAME-Archive/JAME_Vol20_3/The%20Surprising%20Foil%20to%20Online%20Education%20Why%20Students%20won%27t%20give%20up%20Paper%20Textbooks.pdf

Moi wrote in A textbook ain’t what it used to be:

Jeffrey R. Davis writes in TheChronicle of Higher Education article, The Object Formerly Known as the Textbook:

Textbook publishers argue that their newest digital products shouldn’t even be called “textbooks.” They’re really software programs built to deliver a mix of text, videos, and homework assignments. But delivering them is just the beginning. No old-school textbook was able to be customized for each student in the classroom. The books never graded the homework. And while they contain sample exam questions, they couldn’t administer the test themselves.

One publisher calls its products “personalized learning experiences,” another “courseware,” and one insists on using its own brand name, “MindTap.” For now, this new product could be called “the object formerly known as the textbook….”

Amid all this change, the lines separating publisher, professor, university, and software company are blurring: The blockbuster textbooks of tomorrow could be produced not by publishers but directly by universities, maybe with the help of MOOC companies like Coursera or Udacity. http://chronicle.com/article/Dont-Call-Them-Textbooks/136835/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Similar:

Students Get Savvier About Textbook Buying http://chronicle.com/article/Students-Get-Savvier-About/136827/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

For Many Students, Print Is Still King http://chronicle.com/article/For-Many-Students-Print-Is/136829/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

https://drwilda.com/2013/02/04/a-textbook-aint-what-it-used-to-be/

All one can say is that the question is not what will happen to the textbook, but where is information delivery to students going and what will be the format or formats.

Related:

Are open-source textbooks becoming a viable alternative to traditional texts?                                                                     https://drwilda.com/2012/08/12/are-open-source-textbooks-becoming-a-viable-alternative-to-traditional-texts/

Could ‘open source’ textbooks be cheaper than traditional textbooks?                                                              https://drwilda.com/2012/01/17/could-open-source-textbooks-be-cheaper-than-traditional-textbooks/

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Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Does ‘cloud storage’ affect student privacy rights?

19 Feb

Moi wrote about student privacy in Who has access to student records?

Moi discussed the The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in The Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act balancing act:

Schools all over the country are challenged by students who are violent, disruptive, and sometimes dangerous. Christine Clarridge, Seattle Times staff reporter reports in the Seattle Times article, Student-privacy laws complicate schools’ ability to prevent attacks which was about an unprovoked assault in a high school restroom which almost killed two students.

Five months before she allegedly attacked two schoolmates with a knife, nearly killing one, a Snohomish High School student underwent counseling after she threatened to kill another student’s boyfriend.

The 15-year-old Snohomish girl was allowed to return to school only after she presented proof she had attended counseling.

The earlier threats would have never been made public if the information wasn’t contained in court documents charging the girl with first-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault in last Monday’s attack.

Some Snohomish parents were surprised to learn of the earlier threat and have expressed concern that they weren’t notified.

But student information, including mental-health records, is tightly held by school districts because of federal privacy laws. The district says it cannot even discuss whether counselors or teachers were made aware of the earlier threats because of privacy laws.

The case underscores the delicate and complicated balancing act faced by schools in their efforts to meet the educational and privacy rights of individual students, as well as their need to ensure the safety of the larger student body. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016643796_schoolsafety30m.html

There is a complex intertwining of laws which often prevent school officials from disclosing much about students.

According to Fact Sheet 29: Privacy in Education: Guide for Parents and Adult-Age Students,Revised September 2010 the major laws governing disclosure about student records are:

What are the major federal laws that govern the privacy of education records?

  • Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) 20 USC 1232g (1974)

  • Protection of Pupil’s Rights Amendments (PPRA) 20 USC 1232h (1978)

  • No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. 107-110, 115 STAT. 1425 (January 2002)

  • USA Patriot Act, P.L. 107-56 (October 26, 2001)

  • Privacy Act of 1974, 5 USC Part I, Ch. 5, Subch. 11, Sec. 552

  • Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act (Pub. L. 106-386)

FERPA is the best known and most influential of the laws governing student privacy. Oversight and enforcement of FERPA rests with the U.S. Department of Education. FERPA has recently undergone some changes since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act and the USA Patriot Act…. https://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs29-education.htm

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/the-federal-educational-rights-and-privacy-act-balancing-act/

Still, schools collect a lot of information about students.

Mike Bock wrote the intriguing Education Week article, Districts Move to the Cloud to Power Up, Save Money:

There are serious questions and concerns, however, about moving computer operations to the cloud. Chief among those worries is the security of sensitive data, such as student records. That concern alone has led some district information-technology leaders to remain hesitant about moving in that direction….

Bandwidth Needs Grow

But for districts with the bandwidth infrastructure in place, experts say cloud approaches offer lower costs and less time spent on maintenance. Since many cloud-based applications are offered either for free or for a monthly subscription rate, upfront costs for software are typically lower than the standard model of purchasing software and installing it across the district….

Privacy Concerns

But there is a trade-off. If a district puts its student-information system in a cloud environment, the cloud provider has access to information about all students.

Districts need to be protective and aware of that reality and must follow requirements outlined in state and federal policy, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law that requires that websites obtain parents’ consent before collecting personal details about users, such as home addresses or email addresses, from children younger than 13.

“You want to make sure you understand the company you’re dealing with and look into how they deal with privacy concerns,” says Atkinson-Shorey.

Paul Potter, the director of technological infrastructure for the 3,150-student Tomah, Wis., school system, says districts that have staff members with computer-programming backgrounds might want to consider developing their own cloud applications if they find that their needs aren’t being met by some of the more popular cloud-computing providers….

http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2013/02/06/02cloud.h06.html?tkn=PYMF4hhA6EcyMvzcq4T6AaBDFNeT6fynaPVn&cmp=clp-edweek&intc=es

School districts have to balance the rights of students to an education with the need to know of other parties.

Resources:

FERPA General Guidance for Students

http://ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/students.html

No Child Left Behind A Parents Guide

http://ed.gov/parents/academic/involve/nclbguide/parentsguide.pdf

Related:

Data mining in education                                                                  https://drwilda.com/2012/07/19/data-mining-in-education/

Who has access to student records?                                 https://drwilda.com/2012/06/11/who-has-access-to-student-records/

Where information leads to Hope. ©                 Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                          http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                                 http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

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