[Live Blogged — so please forgive misspellings and awkward writing]
Getting ready to hear from Marc Tucker, President of the National Center on Education and the Economy, author of the Tough Choices or Tough Times report. I will be adding notes and resubmitting this blog over the next few minutes…
There is now a global labor market. There is no place to hide. We thought we could hide by highly educating our children, because only the richest countries could do that. It’s not true. For every job today that is being off shored, there are ten jobs that are being lost to automation. As people become more expensive, and machines become less expensive, business has no choice but to change — move toward automation.
Teachers would be employed by the state, not by the district. They would be hired, however, by the school. NO more local financing of education. Only by the state. “There is no way that the U.S. will have a world class education as long as the wealthiest can congregate the best resources. (near quote)”
The employed will make less money and fewer will be employed. Will complanies continue to pay high wages. The answer is, “Yes!” Companies who produce higly demanded products and are the only companys who offer those products will pay high wages. That requires constant new and desirable products. He’s talking about Apple as an example. This requires not only talented technicians, but a company culture that promotes and provokes creativity.
Without at least a 2-yr college degree, it is almost impossible to maintain a family and stay above the poverty line.
We are in worse shape now than we were 30 years ago.
Marc’s presentation slides are available at the NCEE site.
They are suggesting that rather than testing every year, we, instead, have one test that kids can take one test, which, upon passing, they can go on to a community or technical college. The goal would be that 60% have passed it by 16 and 95% by 18. Upon passing the test, they can go on to a community or technical college. If desired, students can stay in high school and take AP/honors classes, working toward university education and professional careers. Interesting!
This will only work if we can recruit from the top third of our students for the teaching course. Currently policy goes after the bottom third. Wow!
Suggest that schools are run by third-party organizations — preferrably partnerships of teachers. Contracts would be performance based. The money would be based, also, on performance.
Today’s exams are deadly. They test on a very narrow sampling of the skills that are crucial to the future. There are good exams out there. But they are expensive, by four or five times. We need fewer exams and much better ones.
This change will only happen with strong state and federal departments of education. Yet, most state DOE’s have lost staff.
The report is a provocative and radical report. They have no expectation that the country will buy in or all states. But the report is written for state departments of ed, because this is where the power lever is.
There are enormous rewards to states who get it and do it right — the making of their state!
I definitely agree that the current system only supports the rich.
At first glance, Marc seems to like the way other countries test their students. The one big test idea. That’s interesting. Is he saying I can go to a top college earlier if I pass the test when I am 16? I guess not since he says community or technical college. Anyway, I think this is a great idea because most students will not go to a top university and will want to learn something useful so they can make money.
The whole bottom third gets recruited as teachers was always a generalization I had especially at the lower grades. There are exceptions, but I think its mostly true. Not sure how we can convince the top third to start teaching (money?) or maybe with the tougher job market, more will teach.
Overall, I agree with Marc. I think I’ll check out more of his stuff. Thanks for the post!
David,
I wonder what you thought about Marc Tucker’s speech or track record?
He’s a big carrot and stick guy, but I’ve yet to find any carrots in his quiver (like most neo-behaviorists dressed up as constructivists).
That said, I’ve taught with some of the curricular materials created by his organization. They’re not terrible.
Teachers would be employed by the state, not by the district. They would be hired, however, by the school. NO more local financing of education. Only by the state. “There is no way that the U.S. will have a world class education as long as the wealthiest can congregate the best resources. (near quote)†– As a principal in New Zealand where this is the system (with 4 million people we are only a state in the US)we could not go back to any system where we do not employ our own teachers at the school level. The most powerful cultural change agent we have is our employment decisions. What could be worse than getting things moving with ICT’s, Web2.0 or whatever and then be given someone who can’t find the on button on their laptop!!??
Why do we care so much about exams? Why do we worry so much about assessment? What is important is teaching and learning! Assessment can drive, develop, critique and support teaching and learning but on its on it is meaningless. Where is the value of assessment only? When will governments realise it is all about the learning. The assessment does nothing without the learning. In New Zealand national assessment rules everything at secondary school. If we funded learning then we could really make a difference.
I agree that we need a systemic change, and we need it NOW. No more tweaking the edges. California is third from the bottom in reading scores out of the 50 states, yet we are the richest state. Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all we hear. Teachers are too afraid to speak up about things that are wrong. And funding? Where was the justice for the students in Watts all these years? Their ESL teachers are paid $10 less an hour than in Orange County, which is just 30 minutes away.