Social discussion of CS in K-12

["Smith, Kathleen Rapp" <smithka AT illinois.edu>]

Some time back the book, We Make The Road by Walking, was mentioned on this 
list serve.  I got it, read it, and think it well defines this topic.  We are 
not involved in a sprint or relay or marathon, but in a long walk.  A walk 
allows time for reflection, conversation and detours.  It may well never end. 
 What we learn along the way is what defines our efforts. Those who walked 
before us leave their tracks.  The book "Civic Passions" was also mentioned 
and I am currently reading that.  I have learned that my education before 
becoming a teacher was lacking in the wealth of thought provoked by the 
individuals discussed in this book.  I would have walked a better path had I 
known more about their journey.  I am still on the path, although in a 
greatly reduced role, and I am still trying to find ways to leave a few 
footprints.    My musings.    Kathleen

Mathematics is the Language of the Universe.

Kathleen R. Smith
University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign
Department of Mathematics, Retired
217 687-2889


________________________________________
From: 
ctrl-shift-bounces AT lists.mste.illinois.edu
 
[ctrl-shift-bounces AT lists.mste.illinois.edu]
 on behalf of Reese, George Clifford 
[reese AT illinois.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 9:02 AM
To: Imani Bazzell
Cc: 
ctrl-shift AT lists.mste.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: [Ctrl-Shift] FW: [New post] Long Distance Runners Make the Best 
Reformers

Hi Imani,

I like the relay race more than the marathon metaphor. It’s probably better 
than my treasure hunt metaphor too in that it emphasizes the team nature of 
the effort.
What I don’t like about the sports metaphors is the notion of competition as 
the main task. Education is one of those spots where we should be careful to 
think about all the people involved, and our metaphors that emphasize victory 
are dangerous that way. We get stuck for example in talking about being 
“globally competitive” as though we know what that really means, or what it 
implies.

But for sure, I think, education is a group (team?) activity.

George


From: Imani Bazzell 
[mailto:thinkandfeel AT gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 8:27 AM
To: Reese, George Clifford
Cc: 
ctrl-shift AT lists.mste.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: [Ctrl-Shift] FW: [New post] Long Distance Runners Make the Best 
Reformers

Love your Father's Day musings. I find myself using the long distance run 
metaphor quite a bit, not just as it relates to transforming schools, but any 
systems level change.

Part of the message is about doing your part; another, of course, being there 
are multiple parts {roles, targets}; and for some, maybe the most important 
part is about passing the baton {grow leadership}.

Actually, I realize I'm describing a relay race; a team effort. I still 
always use "long distance run" so organizers don't lose faith and to point to 
the need for patience and fitness for the long haul.

Have a happy!

On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 3:47 PM, Reese, George Clifford 
<reese AT illinois.edu<mailto:reese AT illinois.edu>>
 wrote:
Happy Father’s Day Shifters,

Just read Larry Cuban’s blog piece on school reform as a marathon rather than 
a sprint. I think it’s a good metaphor. But then again, I don’t think we 
should try to pace ourselves with unambitious change, but rather recognize 
that you just can’t expect it to come too fast. Perhaps a race is not the 
right metaphor after all. Let me try this. Education growth (reform) is a 
treasure hunt, where the journey offers nuggets along the way, some small, 
some large, some fool’s gold. Some of the paths are trod over and, it seems, 
picked clean. Others, like CS/CT may be new territory, but the richness is 
yet unknown.

Sunday afternoon musings. Back to work.

George


From: Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice 
[mailto:comment-reply AT wordpress.com<mailto:comment-reply AT wordpress.com>]
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2015 3:02 AM
To: Reese, George Clifford
Subject: [New post] Long Distance Runners Make the Best Reformers

larrycuban posted: "In 1971, John Gardner, then head of Common Cause, a 
grassroots organization dedicated to keeping government open and accountable, 
hired a young staffer to work on cleaning up the dirty money that flowed into 
Presidential campaigns during Richard Nixon's t"
Respond to this post by replying above this line




New post on Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

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Long Distance Runners Make the Best 
Reformers<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__larrycuban.wordpress.com_2015_06_21_long-2Ddistance-2Drunners-2Dmake-2Dthe-2Dbest-2Dreformers_&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=cj0FobMwTKn_MnivP-TyTy2gMAramBs2MviT5S7x6Ck&e=>
by 
larrycuban<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__larrycuban.wordpress.com_author_larrycuban_&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=Ly7PaffV58jhTxZGpXeURRkAyqaKwj-AkcfSgXXoST8&e=>


In 1971, John Gardner, then head of Common 
Cause<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.commoncause.org_about_&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=-kLeB_itm2e8hMJVamHDYlMSxJ0YAZbOfPa72jktYPo&e=>,
 a grassroots organization dedicated to keeping government open and 
accountable, hired a young staffer to work on cleaning up the dirty money 
that flowed into Presidential campaigns during Richard Nixon's term of 
office. Fred Wertheimer lobbied U.S. senators and congressmen and women to 
put limits to campaign spending and to keep the donations open to public 
inspection. At that time, Gardner told Wertheimer, "reform is not for the 
short-winded." Over forty years later, Wertheimer continues to work on 
cleaning up campaign financing and 
says<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.motherjones.com_mojo_2012_06_dark-2Dmoney-2Dmother-2Djones-2Dfred-2Dwertheimer&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=kWWEssyeUkISHJjXaQwc5LV-PMVJ53A64Sgk_dJ-xRA&e=>
 about Gardner's advice: "He never told me it was 41 years and counting."

School reform (championed by the political right, center, or left), like 
campaign financing, is for long distance runners who have overcome short 
winded-ness. I made that point when 
analyzing<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__larrycuban.wordpress.com_2014_10_20_school-2Dleaders-2Das-2Dmarathoners-2Dnot-2Dsprinters_&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=KLqNzWgr41nYOLM1xClfNEE9FR3CVhnktME-EMgEgEo&e=>
 short-term superintendents like sprinters Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C. 
and John Deasy in Los Angeles Unified. But short-windedness also applies to 
the long-haul necessary for incremental school reform in districts to 
accumulate into something that matters in the lives of students and teachers.

Like building a house, putting in a foundation, wall framing, putting on a 
roof, wiring and plumbing are done in increments that end up being a finished 
house. So it is for school reform. Most zealous reformers--be they 
policymakers, school boards, philanthropists, CEOs--know that in their heads 
but seldom practice it. Building a house, of course, means the purpose and 
direction of change is obvious. Not so, for school reform.

District policymakers, administrators, and activist 
parents--stakeholders--seeing themselves as "agents of change"-- seldom ask: 
change toward what end? Change in of itself becomes the desired outcome, not 
the district's long-term direction (e.g., prepare students for an 
information-driven economy, build decent adults engaged in helping themselves 
and others). And that is why the short-winded are attracted to school reform. 
From charter schools to "disruptive innovations" to delivering computer 
devices en masse to students and teachers, rarely is the question asked: Do 
these new things take us in the direction that we want to take tax-supported 
public schools in a democracy? If yes, how? If no, why invest scarce 
resources in them?  Sprinters worship speed and seldom ask these questions; 
they want to make grand changes fast and cheap. Marathoners have the time and 
energy to ask the questions and figure out how to get from here to there in 
chunks, not all at one time. They seek quality--"good"--over fast and cheap.

I have written a few times about long distance runners as urban 
superintendents (see 
here<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__larrycuban.wordpress.com_2015_03_31_choosing-2Dreform-2Dminded-2Durban-2Dsuperintendents_&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=9szzTGV_FSARDcEs-PrcJglcSGctG4xht_gO_nfALNA&e=>).
 District marathoners means serving at least a decade in the post. Consider 
Boston’s former superintendent Thomas W. 
Payzant<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__educationnext.org_thebostonian_&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=PXY0tNlfelRN5AAw2M_quzUI16cypA0Mo77BwBNUI7o&e=>,
 Carl 
Cohn<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__articles.latimes.com_2002_may_22_local_me-2Dsupt22&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=TW9UBxhNCJR_WxFGV3cEyP1XKq1RY1uZkIDPhrcHxqM&e=>
 of the Long Beach, Calif., school district, and Laura 
Schwalm<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.ggusd.us_apps_news_show-5Fnews.jsp-3FREC-5FID-3D318499-26id-3D0&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=MdNVi7ke_hDD-M6JbaTcz9rZV9OPBjgujWkcf5MJ8S0&e=>
 of California’s Garden Grove Unified School District. To be sure, these 
long-serving chiefs were beset with political, economic, and demographic 
challenges over which they had no control. Moreover,  because they were 
mostly minority districts there were continuing problems of low achievement 
and test score gaps between minorities and whites that were tough to solve. 
Criticism often stung. Yet these marathoners quietly and steadily chipped 
away at these problems.  Their teachers, by and large, were supportive of 
their school chiefs’ efforts even when local teacher unions disagreed with 
parts of each one’s reform agenda. These urban superintendents sought 
incremental changes moving carefully and slowly toward their goals walking 
hand-in-hand with teachers and their unions.

Then there are a few smaller urban districts that have shifted from mostly 
white to mostly minority and, in doing so, have still maintained academic 
achievement even though school boards have changed membership, budget crises 
occurred, governance shifted, and states required districts to alter 
programs. In such an ever-changing political context rife with socioeconomic 
problems, these superintendents hung in, starting new programs here, 
bolstering older programs there. They worked closely with teachers either 
within collective bargaining contracts or through meet-and-confer. They not 
only knew that teachers and teaching were central to student improvement but 
acted again and again to help teachers do what they did best. In these 
smaller districts, they worked incrementally towards overall district goals 
amid demographic shifts and ever-increasing state requirements. One such 
district prided itself on long-winded superintendents who, with its school 
board, achieved enviable student outcomes over decades.

The urban district is Arlington 
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.apsva.us_Page_1&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=iJfvaM_ZWC3DB5sb42jWHL-kKKVJOa_NqZwdOYhwYZw&e=>
 (VA).  Since the late-1970s, through shifts in school board 
governance--Arlington went from appointed to elected board members--and 
long-serving superintendents, the district has established and maintained a 
reputation for academic excellence (however measured) as it has changed 
gradually from a majority-white to majority-minority district. Between 1974 
and 2015, for example, the district has had only five superintendents. The 
current superintendent has been in the post since 2009 and was recently 
selected as Virginia superintendent for 2014. Public participation in an 
array of citizen committees including parent involvement in school site 
decision-making have become an Arlington tradition. Although collective 
bargaining is banned by the state, teacher and administrative unions have 
worked closely with district leaders in achieving the school board's 
strategic 
plan<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.apsva.us_strategicplan&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=rsEx5ihYNIneCSlOjogZQQBTi4KgG6kba6PCeYZbFQo&e=>.
 Incremental changes aimed at achieving desired student outcomes have been 
executed decade after decade to achieve that vision. Sure, there are 
organizational, curricular, and instructional issues that bother both parents 
and teachers and need attention. But for an urban district, that kind of 
continuity in district leadership, public participation, and sustained high 
academic performance is uncommon.

As John Gardner said: "reform is not for the short-winded."
larrycuban<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__larrycuban.wordpress.com_author_larrycuban_&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=Ly7PaffV58jhTxZGpXeURRkAyqaKwj-AkcfSgXXoST8&e=>
 | June 21, 2015 at 1:00 am | Tags: reform 
policies<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__larrycuban.wordpress.com_-3Ftag-3Dreform-2Dpolicies&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=lnf3PD61hLZXfHgBnWXTEF66IU1zWdgTV6A5aJvdZ3s&e=>
 | Categories: Reforming 
schools<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__larrycuban.wordpress.com_-3Fcat-3D23734168&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=TAAhxdvGKYclhc-YXKfCUjZ6H_YdWgrOoC7jXrOV0Yo&e=>
 | URL: 
http://wp.me/pBm7c-2sQ<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__wp.me_pBm7c-2D2sQ&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=7lsUd9IH2RvYcV6Tc1ghiwGzAcKxFU4ZZ2TLoc3RIjI&m=uCZlElMTnANnO8vp1Q7XuPCEycLfkOxnYkKXbHmiGaY&s=7YXb2Z3YdcoEpKGBPk9J85TpIpr5u_PZ-Un8tfZJNUk&e=>
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