Click for the full report. See right and below for Executive Summary excerpt
Across the United States, state education agencies and school districts face daunting challenges and difficult decisions for restarting schools as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
As state and district leaders prepare for what schooling will look like in 2020 and beyond, there is an opportunity to identify evidence-based policies and practices that will enable them to seize this moment to rethink school in ways that can transform learning opportunities for students and teachers alike.
Our current system took shape almost exactly a century ago, when school designs and funding were established to implement mass education on an assembly-line model organized to prepare students for their “places in life”—judgments that were enacted within contexts of deep-seated racial, ethnic, economic, and cultural prejudices. In a historical moment when we have more knowledge about human development and learning, when society and the economy demand a more challenging set of skills, and when—at least in our rhetoric—there is a greater social commitment to equitable education, it is time to use the huge disruptions caused by this pandemic to reinvent our systems of education.
The question is: How we can harness these understandings as we necessarily redesign school?
How can we transform what has not been working for children and for our society into a more equitable and empowering future?
This report provides an overarching framework that focuses on how policymakers as well as educators can support equitable, effective teaching and learning regardless of the medium through which that takes place. This framework provides research, state and local examples, and policy recommendations in 10 key areas that speak both to transforming learning and to closing opportunity and achievement gaps. It illustrates how policymakers and educators can:
Establish community schools and wraparound supports
Prepare educators for reinventing school
Leverage more adequate and equitable school funding
Each of these 10 policy priorities will help schools reinvent themselves around principles of equity, authentic learning, and stronger relationships, and they require shifts from policymakers and educators alike.
1436 – Johannes Gutenberg built the first printing press, opening knowledge beyond clerics.
1455 – The Bible is published.
1664 – Pierre Petit develops the “magic lantern”, precursor to slide projector, used in education into 1900’s. 1690 – The New England Primer used to teach reading, 3m copies printed.
1728 – Shorthand correspondence courses were offered by a Boston
1806 – Lancastrian system of master teachers, monitors, and sand boxes–eventually replaced with slates.
1841 – Horace Mann champions chalk boards in schools.
1888 – Thomas Edison made 341 films with a “kinetoscope” proclaiming the end of books in education.
1890 – Typewriters begin to be used in secondary schools.
1918 – Chicago public schools used 8,000 magic lantern slides.
1923 – Radio is used for instruction in schools starting at the Haaren High School in NYC.
1931 – Twenty five states had media or film departments
1938 – My mother wrote and performed radio plays to teach home economics for the Dept. of Agriculture.
1930-1957 – Radio, film, typewriters gains fail to cause growth due to cost and lack of teacher training.
1957 – The launch of Sputnik sparked a strong flow of investment in instructional television.
1959 – PLATO computer based learning software is developed at the University of Illinois.
1960 – Development of the overhead projector using clear film.
1967 – Stanford’s Patrick Suppes learning research leads to Computer Curriculum Corporation (CCC)
1969 – Taught animated filmmaking in a Philadelphia public high school while in college.
1971 – Ivan Illich develops the concept of “learning webs” as a model for people to network learning.
1972 – Seymour Papert develops Microworlds, children become mathematicians via programming.
1980 – Video conferencing systems begin to be developed.
1982 – SIS- First student information systems developed, NCS- SASI, Eagle, Aeries, etc.
1983 – Apple computer introduces Iie into schools achieving greater implementation due to ease of use.
1984 – First accredited distance learning University, National Technology University
1984 – Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT) shortens testing, individualizing learning in over 30,000 schools.
1987 – TERC innovated with elementary Inquiry-Based Learning networks, probeware and data collection.
1987 – Interactive whiteboards support computer and video integration into classroom instruction.
1988 – 3 million computers in schools are used by students for an average of 30 minutes each per day.
1989 – ChannelOne News satellite school network launched bringing TVs and connectivity to schools.
1990 – LMS- First learning management systems developed, EKKO in Norway, Softarc in the U.S.
1995 – Project- Based Learning initiatives begun by Autodesk.
1994 – Open educational resources (OER) freely accessible openly licensed text and media begin.
2011 – PBS Learning Media, NBC Learn, AwesomeStories.org and other OER and freemium media launch.
2011 – 160,000 students enroll in the first MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) at Stanford.
2011 – Chromebooks offer cloud-based inexpensive option for schools and families.
2014 – Google Classroom launches delivering classroom, teacher, managed lessons.
2015 – Smarter Balanced and PARCC assessment state consortia launch requiring more school computers. 2019 – Leading web-based SIS, Powerschool, acquires and integrates Schoology, rapidly growing LMS.
2020 – COVID-19 spurs the spread of online systems causes increase in virtual learning, shortage of chromebooks, likely to cause greater lasting integration into learning.
How about adaptive tests that are shorter because they zero in on skills and knowledge levels of each learner?
How about giving these tests 3 times a year instead of long tests at the end of the year?
How about having immediate results so that teachers, students, and families know what gaps need filling, skills need practice, gains need celebrating?
Two states are currently working on replacing end of year summative tests (like Smarter Balanced) with these MAP online adaptive tests given three times a year and providing guidance immediately to teachers instead of sending information to the next year’s teacher on last year’s student.
