In a series of interviews, technology leaders from several K-12 districts and universities shared their secrets for successful information management, reporting, and analytics projects. From those interviews, 10 best practices were revealed.

1. Securing executive sponsorship.

When taking on an information management, reporting, and analytics initiative, all the leaders agreed about the importance of securing strong executive sponsorship. It goes beyond just getting approval of a budget to purchase software. You also need to have executive sponsorship at the highest level – someone who fully understands the value that reporting and analytics can bring to the district or institution and has a vision for using it to transform school, program, and student outcomes for the better.

2. Identifying and involving stakeholders early and assessing their unique needs.

You will come across a wide variety of potential users, ranging from different internal users and the school board/board of regents to government bodies, media, parents, and the general public. These stakeholders can have vastly different skill sets and requirements. So it’s vital that you identify and engage these stakeholders early in the reporting and analytics planning process, view them as customers, and analyze and segment them.

The federal government should support, and even offer incentives to, states that move toward competency-based learning systems, Horn writes.

The opportunity to transform the nation’s education system from its factory-model roots to a student-centric version has never been greater.

Online education is growing rapidly in full-time virtual schools, and even more so in blended-learning environments. This is the future of our education system. Now, America must embrace this change to create alternative learning models that maximize every student’s learning potential and improve the outlook of the country’s global competitiveness.

Although this critical issue is a national challenge and opportunity, it does not mean the best way to drive innovative change in education is through the federal government. Most of the funding and decision-making around education in this country occur at the state and local levels. The federal government has limited ability to effect change. That said, what the federal government can do is create the conditions for the type of changes to emerge that put the focus on each individual student.

To create lasting change, the federal government must clean up restrictive regulations on schools and school districts—such as the “supplement, not supplant,” regulation that comes with Title I funds—and focus more on legislation that encourages student growth and outcomes.

For more news and opinion about school reform, see:

In Mich. reform district, students set their own pace for learning

Viewpoint: The education competition myth

School Reform Center at eSN Online

Dictating the specific programs that schools implement and limiting how school leaders and teachers operate impairs schools from best serving students’ needs. The government can assist by helping to define common goals for the education system, but then it should entrust the teachers and leaders on the ground to match the circumstances of each student with the available resources to help achieve the greatest outcomes possible. By giving teachers this trust, schools are encouraged to innovate, which would allow organic change to happen.

Race to the Top (RTTT) has proved to be an interesting model to incentivize states to take concrete actions that they might not otherwise have taken. Although it is easy to use the model to micromanage how schools operate, which is a mistake, RTTT shows the power of incentives to help states create the conditions on the ground for innovation in education.

Leveraging this power to help states move beyond policies that dictate student-to-teacher ratios, teacher-certification requirements, and rules governing seat time would be a big step forward. With this done, the following measures should be taken:

Promote individual student growth as the measure of performance. The government should support teachers by moving away from the No Child Left Behind/Adequate Yearly Progress school site accountability model. Eliminating this measurement and replacing it with one that is focused on growth for each student will do a better job of creating transparency around how our schools are actually doing and will give credit to educators helping a student make meaningful progress regardless of where she started.

Learning to live with both internal and external distractions is all about teaching the concept of focus, Rosen writes.

A recent Pew Internet & American Life Project report surveyed 2,462 middle and high school Advanced Placement and national writing project teachers and concluded that: “Overwhelming majorities agree with the assertions that today’s digital technologies are creating an easily distracted generation with short attention spans, and today’s students are too ‘plugged in’ and need more time away from their digital technologies.”

Two-thirds of the respondents agree with the notion that today’s digital technologies do more to distract students than to help them academically.

Mind you, we are talking about teachers who typically teach the best and brightest students and not those who we would generally think of as highly distractible.

Recently my research team observed 263 middle school, high school, and university students studying for a mere 15 minutes in their homes. We were interested in whether students could maintain focus and, if not, what might be distracting them. Every minute we noted exactly what they were doing, whether they were studying, if they were texting or listening to music or watching television in the background, and if they had a computer screen in front of them and what websites were being visited.

The results were startling, considering that the students knew we were watching them and most likely assumed we were observing how well they were able to study. First, these students were only able to stay on task for an average of three to five minutes before losing their focus. Universally, their distractions came from technology, including: (1) having more devices available in their studying environment such as iPods, laptops, and smart phones; (2) texting; and (3) accessing Facebook.

Other researchers have found similar attention spans among computer programmers and medical students, and in those studies technology provided the major sources of distraction.

We also looked at whether these distractors might predict who was a better student in general. Not surprisingly, those who stayed on task longer and had well-developed study strategies were better students. The worst students were those who consumed more media each day and had a preference for switching back and forth between several tasks at the same time.

One additional result stunned us: If the students checked Facebook just once during the 15-minute study period, they had a lower grade-point average. It didn’t matter how many times they looked at Facebook; once was enough. Not only did social media negatively impact their temporary focus and attention, but it ultimately impacted their entire school performance.

So, what was going on with these students? We have asked thousands of students this exact question, and they tell us that when alerted by a beep, a vibration, or a flashing image, they feel compelled or drawn to attend to that stimulus. However, they also tell us that even without the sensory intrusions they are constantly being distracted internally by thoughts such as, “I wonder if anyone commented on my Facebook post,” or “I wonder if my friend responded to the text message I sent five minutes ago”—or even “I wonder what interesting new YouTube videos my friends have liked.”

Three-fourths of teens and young adults check their devices every 15 minutes or less and if not allowed to do so get highly anxious. And anxiety inhibits learning.

Many of the comments expressed a deep gratitude for the eRate, and overall, they indicated a desire for a simplified, more predictable program that can help them provide better internet connectivity.

In what could be described as a testament to the success of the eRate program, applicants requested the largest amount in the past decade for Funding Year 2012: more than $5.1 billion. While demand for eligible services is at a 10-year high, it is nearly double the available funding ($2.3 billion).

Sensing that demand for eRate funding would continue to outpace available funding nearly 2 to 1, last spring Funds For Learning set out to gather the perceptions, predictions, and opinions of eRate applicants through a nationwide survey. Over the course of two months, Funds For Learning received hundreds of responses from applicants, gathering insight on how applicants are using the program.

In total, 636 applicants responded to the survey, which represents about 3 percent of total applicants in the country. Of these respondents, 434 identified the school or district they represented, allowing for additional statistical comparisons of their response with eRate funding request data.

The online survey consisted of 10 questions designed to address the following themes: the importance of the eRate program; how funding predictability, speed, amount, and flexibility should be ranked; a summary of applicants’ current technology use and plans for the future; ideas for how the eRate should be changed in future funding years; and, in the face of rising demand, which currently funded services are considered most important. Here are excerpts from the full survey analysis.

Significance of the eRate

One survey question asked applicants to respond to a series of eight “agree or disagree” statements regarding the eRate’s importance, historical success, and future growth.

Fast facts

• Approximately 90 percent of respondents said the eRate is critical to their success.

• Only about 40 percent of applicants believe their current level of internet access is adequate for their needs.

• Only one-third of respondents believe the eRate is adequately funded.

There seems to be consensus that schools depend on eRate funding for telecommunications service and internet access in their classrooms, and that more eRate funding is needed. There is almost complete agreement that the eRate is critical to schools, and nearly all respondents believe that eTextbooks and “bring your own device” technology will increase future demand for eRate-eligible services.

When students engage with other classrooms around the world, their effort is ‘through the roof.’

Think about it … what do kids want? What do you want? How about the chance to be masters of tasks, have lives with purpose, and have the choice of when, where, and how when it comes to engagement in learning and teaching?

The classroom is no longer a physical place. Perhaps it never has been. Learning is experiential and it occurs, usually not on schedule, but 24 hours a day. What does this mean in an age of Common Core standards and high-stakes testing? The Common Core standards seem to fit well with students’ need for critical thinking and higher-order thinking skills. I doubt that the high-stakes testing philosophy fits well at all. As a teacher, I can’t help but ask if it even fits anywhere!

One of the goals of a social studies curriculum is to ensure that students are aware of different cultures and geographies—including how these are similar to or different from their own. Social learning communities make this easy. They offer a window to the world.

I connect my students to classrooms and learning experiences all over the world. Like-minded teachers exist, and they also seek global collaboration. Social learning platforms are the perfect place for collaborating in real time through online workspaces. For instance, ePals offers internal blogs and links students with numerous entities, such as the Smithsonian.

Through the years, I have found that when my students use ePals to reach out to and engage with other classrooms, the level of excitement and effort is literally through the roof. Students tell me they actually care about what is going on in the classroom. They value the relationships they create with students across the globe. Students’ writing improves dramatically, because they know their global peers will be reading their assignments.

Speaking of the Smithsonian, we have just completed a project called the Extinction Project. It is a collaborative effort between my classroom and a set of classrooms in Singapore. Rose Manuel, the teacher leader of the Extinction Project, will join me and personnel from the Smithsonian in a Skype call that will span two continents and affect hundreds of students.

With the Extinction Project coming to full fruition, we now see our opportunity to launch the iSOLVE Project. This project, also housed in ePals, takes responsibility and good choices regarding conservation and endangered species to a new level. The iSOLVE Project actually lets students engage in conversations about how they cope and survive in their own daily lives, and additionally, how they save and protect each other through life’s trials and difficult times. We hope that this project is as powerful and helpful as we think it can be.

I work hard to paint a positive picture to get students on my side. And change can be scary! I explain that students will have less homework than they have ever had in a math class, how they will not be forced to listen to their teacher lecture for the majority of class, and how classroom time will be spent working with others and being active in their learning. I give the flipped class a hard sell – I want students to be excited about doing things they have never done before in a math classroom. And there are always a few things that shock them:

“We get to use our cell phones?”

Absolutely!

For more news about flipped learning, see:

New developments enhance school video use

How TED-Ed is helping to amplify instruction

The truth about flipped learning

How to make videos your students will love

“We move at our own pace in class?”

That’s right!

“We’re encouraged to talk in class?”

You bet!

This year marks my second year as a flipped classroom teacher. Now that my lesson videos are already created, I’m excited to focus on the finer points in my classroom. I spent significant effort explaining the flipped classroom to my students last year, so I decided that this year, I would educate their parents as well.

I got a chance to share this idea with many of my fellow education entrepreneurs at the recent White House Education Datapalooza event on October 9, which included special guests U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, and Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement at the U.S. Department of Education Jim Shelton. It was our honor to present and learn about products, services and applications that have immense potential for advancing education achievement.

Digital tools make it possible for schools to go beyond the traditional gradebook. Yes, well-designed quizzes and demonstrated mastery of the new Common Core State Standards matter, but data doesn’t stop there.

Of the many innovations highlighted at the Education Datapalooza, the most promising were the ones building new data sets to uncover trends and insights in student achievement. Everfi, for example, captures data about student perceptions towards personal finance through game-based assessment. Knewton’s adaptive learning platform catches student misconceptions at a micro level as they progress through media-rich content. Gallup’s StrengthsFinder identifies students’ intrinsic talents, helping students navigate successfully from school to career.

And with Kickboard, teachers are keeping track of other factors that were historically (and sometimes mysteriously) rolled into the overall grade on a report card – class participation, timeliness and completion of work.

Keeping track of students’ character development and learning habits – and taking into account the process and thinking behind completing a task, not just whether they got it “right” – is essential to personalizing learning.

Five years ago, we integrated technology into our science program to help students make real-life connections to science and develop a deeper understanding of core concepts and skills. Since then, we’ve improved our science test scores by 20 percentage points and have become a Texas Education Agency (TEA) Recognized campus.

In 2006-07, when we purchased a web-based concept mastery program called Adaptive Curriculum (AC), we did something unusual. We admit it can sometimes be difficult to get teachers to buy in to new technology applications. So, we began our implementation with the students. For the first year, before teachers were trained, students used the software independently in the computer lab. The strategy was to let students explore the interactive instructional units, called Activity Objects, and report back to the teachers. Our students didn’t have to use the software; they were motivated to use it.

Students reported that the program helped them understand lessons they hadn’t understood in class. They frequently mentioned that the program’s real-world scenarios helped increase their understanding. They also found it rewarding when they were able to show their teachers how to do something in the software, and it was motivating for us to see how enthusiastic students were.

Before the second year of implementation, we teachers were trained over the summer. Our school now uses the AC Science program across all grade levels in labs, classrooms and students’ homes. We integrate the Activity Objects into whole group instruction in the classroom using SMART Boards, and often pull out sections of lessons to introduce concepts, reinforce instruction, or provide additional practice. Every student also has access in the computer lab and at home. As a result, we have found that more parents are helping students with science because they find it easier to do so now. It’s helping us create an instructional setting at home.

For students, the program’s real-world scenarios, realistic visualizations, interactive simulations, and 3-D models make abstract concepts easier to understand. Students like that they can explore, make hypotheses, manipulate items, and see the impact of their decisions. They also like that the activities are self-paced, so they can repeat something as many times as needed to ensure understanding.

Lexia Reading “has allowed us to gather detailed, skill-specific data—without interrupting the flow of instruction to administer a test.”

Most educators can agree that frequent progress monitoring is critical to achieving a data-driven culture. However, under my direction at Cahuenga Elementary School in Los Angeles, we employed a different strategy for progress monitoring of reading skills development: We tested less.

Sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Yet, our results demonstrate remarkable success—and they’ve led to a newfound focus on instruction.

Located in the “Koreatown” neighborhood just five miles east of downtown Los Angeles, Cahuenga is a year-round school that finds on any given day nearly three-quarters of its 870 K–5 students on campus. With 19 different ethnic groups represented in total, nearly 70 percent of the students are Latinos, with the remaining 30 percent comprised of students with Korean or Asian heritage.

In 2009, we began piloting Lexia Reading to support a period of intensive intervention with our at-risk students. The software provided students with independent, individualized instruction on foundational reading skills. During the course of this instruction, the program identified the students who were at the greatest risk of reading failure and recommended teacher-led, direct instruction to address specific skill gaps. However, it’s important to note that this program was not only for our students with needs; it served all students regardless of their ability.

Our teachers were able to use the data gleaned from this program to guide their small group instructions, from intensive to gifted. Students who were at or above grade level also benefited from the program, because it took them to the next level. In the end, this program has allowed us to gather detailed, skill-specific data—without interrupting the flow of instruction to administer a test. This is a welcome respite, and a strategy that we will employ for years to come.

This approach gave my teachers real-time student data, based on norm-referenced predictions of each student’s chance of reaching the end-of-year benchmark (expressed as a percent). Think about it: They say that hindsight is 20-20, and it’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. However, by using the predictive data to show each student’s likely end-of-year outcomes, we could affect instruction in real time, and help improve each child’s chance of meeting his or her grade-level benchmarks.

Obama’s education policies haven’t always been popular among Democrats.

Education is the great equalizer, the bedrock of the American Dream. Despite the highest levels of income disparity since the Great Depression, at a time when the personal wealth of the middle class has fallen to early 1990s levels, the unshakeable belief in upward mobility nonetheless still lives in our DNA—and education is its engine.

This is why, during every economic downturn including the recent Great Recession, Americans flock to educational institutions—to get retrained, to finish that degree, to rekindle the desire to better themselves. This is why Thomas Jefferson, author of those self-evident truths in the Declaration of Independence and one of our greatest presidents, wanted the University of Virginia to be his most precious gift to America.

It is for these reasons that the United States was the first country in the modern world to create compulsory, universal public education. Universal means just that—everyone.

In other words, education is what we political scientists call a “public good.” Like clean air or water, or personal and national security, education is so basic to the well-being of a democratic society that everyone must receive its benefits. But everyone must also share in its costs.

Even if I don’t have children, or if I don’t send the ones I do have to a public school, the belief is that some of my tax dollars should go to educating your children because ultimately their education will benefit me and society as a whole.

However, not all share or understand the concept of education as a “public good.” There are those who choose to see education as a “commodity” better left to the forces of the market, like laundry detergent or a chain of restaurants. In this view, families and their children are not citizens whose educational successes promotes civic virtue and democratic values; they are “customers” who shop around with buying power for the best product out of rational self-interest.

Education, then, is to be “consumed” according to individual tastes rather than provided for universally in accordance with our democratic ideals. What determines the success of an educational institution is competition for customers: If a school doesn’t attract customers, then like any enterprise it should go out of business.

This fall you will most likely not hear the differences on education between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney framed in these terms. Yet, in the broadest strokes, this is what is at stake in the presidential election of 2012—two very different visions of education, and two very different ways to solve the problems that the American system of education faces. One based on a principle of universality, the other based on market forces.

Ever the businessman, Mr. Romney falls squarely in the “education-as-commodity” camp. Earlier this year at a town hall in Ohio, he responded to a high school senior’s question about the troubling cost of college in typical form.

“Don’t just go to one that has the highest price,” Romney said. “Go to one that has a little lower price where you can get a good education. And hopefully you’ll find that. And don’t expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.”

The message was rather straightforward and simple: Individuals should shop around in the market for the education they think they can afford, even if it means a mountain of debt. Government has little or no role to play because, for Romney, education is a commercial product, not a public good.

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