Sunday, May 31, 2015

Data Implementation Mistakes To Avoid:



4LAKids: Sunday 31•May•2015
In This Issue:
 •  2 MORE YEARS+$133.6 MILLION TO FIX MISIS/LAUSD TO PAY $79.6 MILLION MORE FOR MiSiS+HIRES NEW TECH OFFICER/BOND COMMITTEE OKS MORE MILLIONS FOR MiSiS
 •  Hope for dropouts: HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUTS TEACHING HIGH SCHOOL IN WISCONSIN?
 •  The Right Start Commission: NEW COALITION SEEKS ANSWERS TO STATE’S EARLY EDUCATION WOES
 •  NONACADEMIC SKILLS ARE KEY TO SUCCESS. BUT WHAT SHOULD WE CALL THEM?
 •  HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
 •  EVENTS: Coming up next week...
 •  What can YOU do?


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In the great scheme of things there are warnings, auguries, and disturbances-in-the-force one is supposed to pay attention to. The unnatural quiet; the dog not barking – the shiver on a warm evening. An inner voice you choose to ignore that says that this person-of-the-opposite-sex is precisely the one your mother warned you against.

And after the fact there is irony. The realization that someday (long hence) - you will laugh at this tragedy.

He may not have said it first, but I first heard it from the Soothsayer of Ebbets Field+Chavez Ravine: “Experience,” Vin Scully said, “is the ability to recognize one’s mistakes when you make them again.”

As I get older the recognition (and the laughter) come sooner.


This week’s headlines: BOND COMMITTEE OKS MORE MILLIONS TO REPAIR LA UNIFIED’S MiSiS / LAUSD TO PAY $79.6 MILLION MORE FOR MiSiS REPAIRS NEXT YEAR, HIRES NEW TECHNOLOGY OFFICER / LAUSD TO SPEND TWO MORE YEARS AND $133.6 MILLION FIXING MiSiS - all seem like last past issues of this very blog.

One needn’t dial all the way back to the Great SAP/BTS Payroll Database Fiasco of 2007 to find a match …though that one plus a child abuse scandal also cost an LAUSD superintendent his job.

The ISIS database never really worked right; MiSiS is supposed to be a quick fix for ISIS (itself a fix for SIS), which couldn’t meet the terms of a federal consent degree in tracking Special Ed students.

Our own Dr. John Deasy – who admitted he doesn’t understand database implementation …but is driven by the need for Big Data – rolled out a product called MiSiS in Prince George’s County, MD …and then got outta Maryland to the warm bosom of The Gates Foundation just before that ship hit that sand!

The Internet abounds with stories of colossal IT failures [http://bit.ly/1LQklOV]:

●INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE: Business Systems Modernization; Launched in 1999 to upgrade the agency’s IT infrastructure and more than 100 business applications.
WHAT HAPPENED? By assembling a star-studded team of vendors, the IRS thought its $8 billion modernization project would manage itself. The IRS thought wrong. As a result, the agency’s ability to collect revenue, conduct audits, and go after tax evaders was severely compromised. This case study illustrates what can go wrong when a complex project overwhelms the management capabilities of both vendor and client. Some consider it to be the most expensive systems development “fiasco” in history, with delays costing the U.S. Treasury tens of billions of dollars per year.

●FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION: Advanced Automation System (AAS); FAA’s effort to modernize the nation’s air traffic control system.
WHAT HAPPENED? AAS was originally estimated to cost $2.5 billion with a completion date of 1996. The program, however, experienced numerous delays and cost overruns, which were blamed on both the FAA and the primary contractor, IBM. According to the General Accounting Office, almost $1.5 billion of the $2.6 billion spent on AAS was completely wasted. One participant remarked, “It may have been the greatest failure in the history of organized work.”

●FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: “Trilogy;” Four-year, $500M overhaul of the FBI’s antiquated computer system.
WHAT HAPPENED? Requirements were ill-defined from the beginning and changed dramatically after 9/11 (agency mission switched from criminal to intelligence focus) thus creating a strained relationship between the FBI and its primary contractor, SAIC. As Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) stated, “This project has been a train wreck in slow motion, at a cost of $170M to American taxpayers and an unknown cost to public safety.”

●There is actual ancient history: THE CALIFORNIA DMV rolled out a database in 1987 that was supposed to solve everything. Look how that went!

…and it isn’t all just government:

●NIKE: Integrated enterprise software.
WHAT HAPPENED? Nike spent $400 million to overhaul its supply chain infrastructure, installing ERP, CRM, and SCM—the full complement of analyst-blessed integrated enterprise software. Post-implementation (3rd quarter, 2000), the Beaverton, Ore.-based sneaker maker saw profits drop by $100 million, thanks, in part, to a major inventory glitch (it over-produced some shoe models and under-produced others). “This is what I get for our $400 million?” said CEO Phil Knight.


Databases are not enchanted machines that generate knowledge and magically create the Great New Wonderful Tomorrow – they are about storing and retrieving information.
If it’s not there, they won’t find it.
The best metaphor for an IT database is a prime example of an IT fiasco; The Denver Airport Automated Baggage Handling System.

The hardest+fastest rule in a land of rules+code is GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

I came across an article on the Internet (Remember: It’s not on the web unless it’s true!) called 5 Big Data Implementation Mistakes To Avoid | http://bit.ly/1GdgnkC

1. You aren’t doing enough with the data you have.
2. You’ve bet the company on free software
3. You’ve abandoned your expensive legacy data systems altogether
4. You don’t know your data (which seems to be a circular recalculation of #1)
5. You’ve bitten off more than you can chew.

LAUSD+MiSiS. 5 for 5.


The media reports unanimously that the Bond Oversight Committee unanimously OK’d the District’s proposal to continue to invest almost $80 million more in MiSiS over the next 12 months. .

It would be easy to go on all “I wasn’t there!” on that vote; I wasn’t.

I support that vote, I would’ve voted to go along with everyone – but it would be wrong to equate unanimity with enthusiasm.

What the papers didn’t report is that the Bond Oversight Committee’s approval came with important conditions and strongly expressed concerns - crafted over the past few weeks – addressed to the board of ed and the superintendent; concerns we believe reflect those of the public, taxpayers and voters.

The BOC will deliver those concerns to the Board at their meeting on June 9th – but primary among them is the District’s commitment to long-term funding and staff training+support of the MiSiS program when it becomes operational and cannot be bond funded. Speaking for myself: I have seen too many billions-with-a-B spent on schools that are not being adequately maintained and too much spent on building and equipping libraries that don’t have librarians.

The District’s history with the payroll fiasco is informative because the selfsame mistakes were repeated with MiSiS. Database centered projects for decision support and transaction processing do fail. How often? According to a study of IT projects by The Standish Group reported in 1995, "Only 9% of projects in large companies were successful. At 16.2% and 28% respectively, medium and small companies were somewhat more successful."

The same report [http://bit.ly/1d6kXDU]continues with lists of reasons:

“Perhaps the methodology is the key to success. The CHAOS report says "Agile projects are successful three times more often than non-agile projects". Larock (2012) argues the problems that lead to failure include: 1. Scope creep, 2. Unmanaged requirements, and 3. Blamestorming, blaming everyone for the failure but yourself. Failure occurs because of the development team and the client. Why do data warehouse projects fail? Projects have a scope of work that is too broad and ambitious, 2) Competing projects take needed resources, 3) Lack of corporate vision, 4) Dirty data and 5) Insufficient technical design.

“Why do IT and database projects fail? Pedersen lists 8 reasons: 1) Users failed to provide complete requirements, 2) Users were not involved in the development process, 3) The project had inadequate or no resources that were vital for its completion, 4) Executive management just did not seem interested in seeing the project through, 5) Specs kept on changing during the project’s tenure, 6) Planning was a casualty, 7) The project’s scope had become outdated due to change in business environment, and 8) The project team was technically incompetent.”

LAUSD+MiSiS: 3 for 3, 5 for 5, 8 for 8.

A new MiSiS team is in place with methodology, agility, ability, reduced scope, genuine leadership and realistic expectations. They apparently have a committed partner with something to prove in Microsoft. They have $80 million, $40 million of which is for Microsoft.

There are people out there saying MiSiS will never work. In the end we vote for Hope and we are hoping the nay-sayers are wrong.

And the irony?

I rely upon a software product from Microsoft called Live Writer to post my daily 4LAKids updates and news feeds to the web. Last week - while I was in Sacramento minding everyone-else’s-business and while my colleagues on the BOC were blessing their contract – Microsoft – without notice - ceased supporting the Live Writer. It was a free software application.

The bluescreen of death. Error 404. File not found.

Data Implementation Mistakes To Avoid:
#2. You’ve bet the company on free software.

¡Onward/Adelante! - smf


2 MORE YEARS+$133.6 MILLION TO FIX MISIS/LAUSD TO PAY $79.6 MILLION MORE FOR MiSiS+HIRES NEW TECH OFFICER/BOND COMMITTEE OKS MORE MILLIONS FOR MiSiS
LAUSD TO SPEND TWO MORE YEARS AND $133.6 MILLION FIXING MISIS
By Thomas Himes, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/1LQ7vAf

5/29/15, 10:05 AM PDT :: The Los Angeles Unified School District will spend the next two years rebuilding its problem-plagued record-keeping system, MiSiS, as the computer software’s costs skyrocket to more than $133.6 million.

District officials rushed to launch the software in August, leading to widespread problems with transcripts, attendance reports, class schedules and other vital records.

While quick fixes helped place students in the proper classrooms and restored some functionality months into the school year, the makeshift repairs need to be unraveled before MiSiS works properly, said Diane Pappas, chief advisor to the superintendent.

“There’s been a lot of short cuts and fixes to the system that weren’t done in the most appropriate way, so now we have to do an awful lot of clean up,” Pappas said. “This system will be pretty much rebuilt by the time we get done.”

Part of the trouble is district officials decided to model MiSiS after a system used by Fresno Unified. But LAUSD, the state’s largest school district with more than 600,000 students, needs to keep records for about eight times as many students as Fresno Unified.

Over the next 12 months, Pappas said the district will focus on restoring “basic functionality.” Bugs in the system’s ability to track attendance — records the state uses to allocate funding — and reports that educators need to review essential information about students will be priorities, Pappas said.

“It will be substantially better than it is now, but it will not be complete,” Pappas said.

During the following year, Pappas said the district will concentrate on creating features that were requested by educators and enhancing user-friendliness.

The project’s cost has grown by more than five times its original budget to $133.6 million from the $25 million that district officials initially anticipated paying.

A committee appointed by school board members to oversee the district’s spending of bond dollars this week approved a request to spend an additional $79.6 million, up from the project’s current budget of $54 million.

But the additional $79.6 million will only include the cost of restoring basic functions over the next 12 months, while more money will be needed the following year to add functionality requested by educators.

Last year, Superintendent Ramon Cortines was prepared to request an additional $71 million for fixing the system he inherited from his predecessor. The additional dollars would have brought MiSiS’ price tag to $98 million, but Cortines later decided to request smaller allocations of bond funding, as work on the system progressed.

District officials said in a statement this week they have restructured their contract with Microsoft ­— a key contractor working on MiSiS — to withhold full payment “until functions are working at schools.”

Aside from the cost of building MiSiS, LAUSD earmarked $11 million in emergency funds to help pay for manpower needed to manually review records, place students in the proper classes and ensure the system didn’t stop seniors from graduating.

MiSiS’ next test will come in August, when students arrive at campuses for the new school year. At the start of this school year, educators were left without the ability to enroll students, because MiSiS malfunctioned under the load of thousands of educators trying to access records at the same time. While may campuses reverted to paper forms last used decades ago, scheduling and enrolling students without software caused numerous issues.

Some students were stranded inside the wrong classes for several weeks, as counselors worked nights and weekends trying to access the system during off-peak hours.

While the start of the second semester went comparatively smoothly, the first week of school provides unique challenges as students attempt to transfer schools and enroll at the last minute.

“We’re doing everything possible to make sure we have a smooth opening of the school year,” Pappas said.

______________

LAUSD SLAMMED WITH $80 MILLION BILL FOR MISIS DATA SYSTEM REPAIRS,
By Annie Gilbertson | KPCC 89.3 | http://bit.ly/1KEIFpg

May 28 2015 :: Los Angeles Unified is asking for $79.6 million in school construction bond funds to repair MiSiS, the student data system that failed to schedule classes, record grades and track attendance when it debuted last summer.

At its meeting Thursday, LAUSD's bond oversight committee unanimously approved the expenditure. The school board still has to sign off before the funds are released. If approved, the amount would bring the cost of building and repairing the district's customized Microsoft student data system to more than $130 million.

Last December, Superintendent Ramon Cortines warned the board that MiSiS repairs would continue throughout 2015, but this week, the district officials announced they were extending the timeline to June 2016.

In a press release Thursday, LAUSD spokeswoman Shannon Haber said the district restructured its contract with the Microsoft Corp. to prevent “the vendor from receiving full payment until functions are working at schools.”

On Tuesday, Cortines announced the appointment of Shahryar Khazei as the district's new chief information officer. His predecessor resigned abruptly last year as problems with MiSiS created havoc with class scheduling and other issues at Los Angeles schools.


ONGOING ISSUES FACE NEW LAUSD TECHNOLOGY CHIEF
By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez | KPCC 89.3 | http://bit.ly/1SIK805
Audio from this story 0:41 Listen: http://bit.ly/1d648sT

May 28 2015 :: Los Angeles Unified has hired a school district insider to lead its troubled information technology office.

Shahryar Khazei succeeds Ron Chandler, the district's last chief information officer, who resigned abruptly last year as problems with the LAUSD’s new student data system wreaked havoc at Los Angeles schools.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines' selection of Khazei, the district's deputy chief information officer, places a 30-year LAUSD employee and mechanical engineer by training in charge of the office that runs technology operations for the district.

The office has been at the center of management issues with two major technology programs that contributed to both Chandler's departure and the resignation of former Superintendent John Deasy.

A school district investigation of last year's meltdown of MiSiS, the district's student data system, found that faulty management of the project’s various moving parts was to blame.

Khazei, who was picked from an applicant pool of 200, worked on the data system’s technology, according to Diane Pappas, the superintendent's chief advisor on the MiSiS recovery program.

“He was on the network side of the project, not part of the project management team, not part of the application, but strictly on the network side,” Pappas said. “The problem was the MiSiS application and all of the other issues, and it was absolutely not ready to be rolled out.”

“[Khazei]'s got great depth of technical knowledge and expertise. He's been working in urban education. He knows schools, knows the school district,” she said.

The district could not immediately provide the salary for his new post.

In a written statement, Cortines said he’s confident Khazei can help fix the student data system. That job, Pappas said, will take another two years.

In his May 15 update on continuing fixes to the MiSiS system, Cortines said: “While the system has been improving steadily since a troubling start to the school year, there is still much to be addressed.”

Khazei will also help oversee the future of the $1.3 billion iPad program, which Cortines has all but abandoned. The initiative, championed by Cortines' predecessor, aimed to get a tablet in the hands of each district student, but it has been problem-plagued.

A federal investigation into the iPad bidding process led the FBI to cart out boxes of documents from district offices in December. The action followed publication by KPCC of emails that revealed the district had been in talks with computer giant Apple and software publisher Pearson long before the bidding process was formally opened.

Last month, district wrote to Apple to demand a multimillion-dollar refund for nonfunctioning curriculum software from Pearson that was installed on the iPads.

________________

BOND COMMITTEE OKS MORE MILLIONS TO REPAIR LA UNIFIED’S MISIS
by Vanessa Romo | LA School Report | http://bit.ly/1FL5EKV

Posted on May 29, 2015 9:53 am :: After a year of emergency fixes that required emergency spending, LA Unified officials say they need another $79.6 million to fully repair the computerized student data management system known as MISIS by the end of next year.

The request was approved unanimously by the Bond Oversight Committee yesterday. It will move to the school board for a vote next month.

If passed, it will bring the total MISIS tab to $133 million, a figure that includes the original $29 million budget the district once believed it would cost to build a perfectly functioning integrative software program. It also covers an extra $3 million to buy new computers for schools whose hardware was too outdated to run the new MISIS program.

Diane Pappas, who was appointed by Superintendent Ramon Cortines last October to lead the MiSiS improvement effort, made a pitch to the BOC, providing details of the yearlong plan to improve the system. Over the next year, she said, the team plans to correct problems with enrollment, scheduling, attendance and other areas critical to operate schools and educate students. The interface will be made more user friendly and additional updates would improve speed and reliability, she said.

The money to cover the costs will be drawn from the “unallocated funds” category in the School Upgrade Program.

The district has also restructured its contract with Microsoft Corp., according to Shannon Haber, a spokesperson for the district. The new deal delays full payment “until functions are working at schools.”

“As part of its assurance to the District, Microsoft has committed to keeping highly qualified personnel on the project, and will bring in additional resources from around the world as needed to foster continued improvement,” Haber wrote in a statement.

But this is not the end of MISIS spending. Documents submitted to the BOC explain, “As the MISIS system becomes operational, an additional allocation of ongoing general fund (money) will be needed starting in 2016-17 for staff to maintain and update MISIS to meet school needs.”

Just how much has yet to be determined.


Hope for dropouts: HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUTS TEACHING HIGH SCHOOL IN WISCONSIN?
By Caitlin Emma | Politico Morning Ed | http://politi.co/1xm12WO

5/29/15 10:01 AM EDT :: The news out of the Wisconsin legislative session has been all about how state colleges and universities face a cut of up to $300 million and K-12 education is staring down the barrel of a near-$130 million cut despite investments in voucher expansion [http://bit.ly/1KBEb2w] and charter schools. But a small provision slipped into the budget by a Republican lawmaker and recently approved by the state’s Joint Committee on Finance has some policy watchers deeply concerned. They say it will demolish Wisconsin’s teacher licensing standards and possibly allow high school dropouts to teach middle and high school students. The provision would allow anyone with a bachelor’s degree to teach English, math, social studies or science in middle or high school as long as a school or district proves they’re proficient in the subject they teach.

And it would allow anyone without bachelor’s degrees, and maybe even without high school diplomas, to teach anything that isn’t considered a core subject. (Current rules say middle or high school teachers must have a bachelor’s degree, a major or minor in the subject they teach, skills training and passing scores on skills assessments and content area tests.)

— Wisconsin Superintendent Tony Evers said [http://1.usa.gov/1BpDVLP] the provision “presents a race to the bottom. It completely disregards the value of the skills young men and women develop in our educator training programs and the life-changing experiences they gain through classroom observation and student teaching. This JFC action is taking Wisconsin in the wrong direction. You don’t close gaps and improve quality by lowering standards.” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also has more: http://bit.ly/1cZEciG.


The Right Start Commission: NEW COALITION SEEKS ANSWERS TO STATE’S EARLY EDUCATION WOES
DESPITE A STATE BUDGET FLUSH WITH EXTRA BILLIONS FOR EDUCATION, GOV. JERRY BROWN IS RECEIVING CRITICISM FROM SOME EARLY EDUCATION ADVOCATES FOR A “STRIKINGLY MINIMAL” APPROACH TO EARLY EDUCATION FUNDING

by Craig Clough | LA School Report | http://bit.ly/UXHVhZ

May 29, 2015 : 1:33 pm In response to the growing body of evidence of the importance of preschool, a coalition of academics, lawmakers, community leaders and business leaders has created the Right Start Commission, whose goal is to help California find a blueprint for providing universal early education to the state’s youth.

The commission, formed by the non-profit Common Sense Kids Action, includes Stanford University Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, Apple Vice President of Environmental Initiatives Lisa Jackson, retired Congressman George Miller and Common Sense Media founder and CEO Jim Steyer.

“Every child deserves a fair start in life, and the only way we can ensure that happens is to provide all kids with the care, support and quality learning experiences they need to be successful from day one,” Steyer said in a press release. “We know that improving early childhood education is one of the best investments we can make. Yet, across the nation millions of American kids are denied this critical opportunity year after year. With the Right Start Commission, Common Sense Kids Action will kick off an effort to reimagine early childhood services in California and create a model for the nation to ensure every child has the opportunity to succeed.”

A recent report by the National Institute for Early Education Research found that California lags behind most other states in the quality of its early education programs and serves only 18 percent of the state’s four-year-old children.

The commission said it will offer recommendations that will help make California a leader in early education.

“I think California is the right state to start that,” Miller told The Associated Press. “This commission will help provide a roadmap.”

The forming of the coalition comes amid an increased focus on early education at LA Unified and in California. Just as the California legislature is debating a bill that would guarantee preschool to every low-income child, LA Unified is considering cutting its School Readiness Language Development Program, which provides preschool to 10,000 low-income students.


THE RIGHT START COMMISSION



NONACADEMIC SKILLS ARE KEY TO SUCCESS. BUT WHAT SHOULD WE CALL THEM?
By Anya Kamenetz | National Public Radio | http://n.pr/1AF4sJS

May 28, 2015 7:03 AM ET :: More and more people in education agree on the importance of learning stuff other than academics.

But no one agrees on what to call that "stuff".

There are least seven major overlapping terms in play. New ones are being coined all the time. This bagginess bugs me, as a member of the education media. It bugs researchers and policymakers too.

"Basically we're trying to explain student success educationally or in the labor market with skills not directly measured by standardized tests," says Martin West, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "The problem is, you go to meetings and everyone spends the first two hours complaining and arguing about semantics."

West studies what he calls "non-cognitive skills." Although he's not completely happy with that term.

The problem isn't just semantic, argues Laura Bornfreund, deputy director of the education policy program at the New America Foundation. She wrote a paper on what she called "Skills for Success," since she didn't like any of these other terms. "There's a lot of different terms floating around but also a lack of agreement on what really is most important to students."

As Noah Webster, the great American lexicographer and educator, put it back in 1788, "The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head."

Yet he didn't come up with a good name, either.

So, in Webster's tradition, here's a short glossary of terms that are being used for that cultivation of the heart. Vote for your favorite in the comments — or propose a new one.

21st CENTURY SKILLS:

According to the Partnership for 21st Century Learning, a research and advocacy group, these include the "4Cs of critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity," as well as "life and career skills" and "information, media and technology skills."

The problem, says West, is that "if anything, all the evidence would suggest that in the closing decades of the 20th and 21st centuries, cognitive skills became more important than ever." So this term, although it's often heard in business and technology circles, doesn't necessarily signal the shift in focus that some researchers want.

CHARACTER:

Character education has a long history in the U.S., with a major vogue in the 1930s and a revival in the 1980s and 1990s. Beginning a few years ago, the KIPP charter schools in New York City started to emphasize a curriculum of seven "character strengths": grit, zest, optimism, self-control, gratitude, social intelligence and curiosity.

"We're not religious, we're not talking about ethics, we're not going to give any kind of doctrine about what is right from wrong," says Leyla Bravo-Willey of KIPP Infinity in Harlem. "But there are some fundamental things that make people really great citizens, which usually include being kind."

West argues that the use of "character" is inappropriate in research and policymaking because of its moral and religious connotations.

He notes that many of the qualities on the KIPP list — grit and self-control, for example — are designed to prepare students for success. "That's in tension with a traditional understanding of character, which often implies something being good in and of itself — which often includes some notion of self sacrifice," says West.

That distinction doesn't bother Bravo-Willey. She says that the school is responding to parents' own wishes that their children be happy and good as well as successful.

GRIT:

Grit is a pioneer virtue with a long American history — think of the classic western True Grit. When Angela Duckworth was working on her dissertation in the mid-2000s, she chose the term to encapsulate the measures of self-control, persistence and conscientiousness that she was finding to be powerful determinants of success. It quickly caught on — maybe too quickly, the University of Pennsylvania psychologist says.

"I'm grateful for the attention, but that gratitude and amazement was quickly replaced by anxiety about people thinking that we had figured things out already." She's worried that grit is being overemphasized: In a recent paper, she argued that grit measures aren't ready to be incorporated into high stakes accountability systems. "I'm also concerned that people interpret my position to be that grit's the only thing that matters."

Larry Nucci at UC Berkeley, who has studied moral development and character education for 40 years, has stronger words for grit. "I think it's flavor of the month. It's not very substantive, it's not very deep."

GROWTH MINDSET:

Carol Dweck, the Stanford University psychologist, chose the term mindset in 2007 for the title of her bestselling book.

"Growth mindset" is the belief that positive traits, including intelligence, can be developed with practice. "Fixed mindset" refers to the idea that intelligence and other talents are set at birth.

"In my research papers I had some very, very clunky scientific-sounding term for the fixed and the growth mindset," she says. "When I went to write the book I thought, these will not do at all."

Mindset has caught on tremendously in both the business and education worlds. But Dweck's concern is that it's being used willy-nilly to justify any old intuition that people might have about positive thinking in the classroom.

"When people start thinking, 'I'll make the kids feel good and they'll learn,' that's how something like the self-esteem movement gains traction," — a 1980s trend that led to lots of trophies but little improvement in achievement.

NONCOGNITIVE TRAITS + HABITS:

This term is most strongly associated with the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman. He analyzed large data sets to show that attributes such as self-discipline and persistence — not just academic achievement — affected education, labor market and life outcomes.

This term is "ugly, broad, nonspecific," argues Carol Dweck — and she's a fan. "I'm the only person who likes the term," she says. "And I'll tell you why: It is a very diverse group of factors and the reason it's been hard to come up with a name is that they don't necessarily belong together."

Martin West at Harvard uses this term himself, but he says he's always careful to acknowledge that it can be "misleading."

"Every skill or trait is cognitive in the sense that it involves and reflects the processing of information of some kind in our brains," he says. And West adds that traditional academic skills more often than not are complements, not substitutes, for the attitudes and personality traits captured by the term "non-cognitive skills."

SOCIAL + EMOTIONAL SKILLS:

Nobody I spoke with hates this term.

"Increasingly teachers who are on the front line say that it's very important to teach kids to be more socially and emotionally competent," says Roger P. Weissberg, chief knowledge officer of the Collaborative for Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), which promotes the concept and the term nationwide. "Teachers feel, and growing research supports, that it helps them academically, it improves school climate, it improves discipline, and it's going to help them to be college and career — and life — ready."

The only problem is that the "skills" part may not be seen as encompassing things that are more like attitudes or beliefs, like growth mindset. And the "social and emotional" part, again, may be seen as excluding skills that are really cognitive in nature.

This is tough, right?

SOFT SKILLS:

Employers commonly use "soft skills" to include anything from being able to write a letter, to showing up on time and having a firm handshake. Most of the researchers I spoke with felt this phrase downplays the importance of these skills. "Soft skills, along with 21st century skills, strike me as exceptionally vague," says West. "I don't know that there's anything soft about them."

So the struggle persists. Maybe one day there will be a pithy acronym or portmanteau to wrap all these skills up with a bow. SES? SEL? N-COG? Gri-Grow-Sess? Let us know what you think.



●● smf’s 2¢: There is a deep and robust conversation ongoing on the comments section of this article on the NPR site [http://n.pr/1AF4sJS]. The consensus is these are “Life Skills” – and no matter what we are calling them, they are not being taught. There is a vocal minority opinion by the usual suspects that these should be exclusively taught by parents – but back in 1759 when Voltaire wrote Candide – Leibnitz’ optimistic “All is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds” was already a fantasy – which the author destroyed in satire in his version of the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755.

And I think Grit is either ground hominy or a movie with a one-eyed John Wayne chewing scenery with drunken abandon. Both go well with a pat of butter.


HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
Editorial: THE RISKS OF TOO MUCH CAUTION IN SETTING CALIFORNIA'S BUDGET | LA Times | Gov. Brown is wise to be cautious, but lowballing revenue estimates holds back spending on crucial programs | http://lat.ms/1FMHU9c

“Would you like water or milk with that?”: DAVIS CA. BANS SODAS IN KIDS’ “HAPPY MEALS” - SFGate http://bit.ly/1eJImfB

FORMER UK PM/UN EDUCATION ENVOY GORDON BROWN: “This is not the year of the child but the year of fear, with 2015 already the worst year since 1945 for children being displaced, the worst year for children becoming refugees, the worst year for children seeing their schools attacked.” http://bit.ly/1RBGjIJ

Charter Schools: FOLLOWING THE MONEY by Marta Jewson of The Lens for Education Writers Association | http://bit.ly/1LQsD9C :: Reporters (…and the rest of us) should pay attention not just to the amount of money charter schools receive but how they are spending it, reporter and moderator Sarah Carr said as she kicked off a session on charter school finance at the Education Writers Association’s recent National Seminar in Chicago

THE ONGOING STRUGGLE OF TEACHER RETENTION | Paul Barnwell, The Atlantic | http://theatln.tc/1Kw81SQ

BOND COMMITTEE OKS MORE MILLIONS TO REPAIR LA UNIFIED’S MiSiS | http://bit.ly/1FgY6Mt
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LAUSD TO PAY $79.6 MILLION MORE FOR MiSiS REPAIRS NEW YEAR, HIRES NEW TECHNOLOGY OFFICER http://bit.ly/1EIvKdr

LAUSD TO SPEND TWO MORE YEARS AND $133.6 MILLION FIXING MiSiS http://bit.ly/1KEBSf5
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Scott Folsom ‏@4LAKids 22h22 hours ago

CALIFORNIA DEPT OF ED CAUTIONS WHEN TO USE LCFF FOR TEACHER RAISES | http://bit.ly/1AAW0fb

CALIFORNIA GETS ONE YEAR NCLB ACCOUNTABILITY WAIVER
from Whiteboard Advisors via Fritzwire | http://twishort.com/YFric

DISTURBING INFO RE: CHILDHOOD SUICIDE from the AALA Weekly Update [http://bit.ly/1LV5uCl] :: According to the American Medical Association (AMA), youth suicide is a major public health concern in the United States.
It was the second leading cause of death in adolescents aged 12 to 19 years in 2012, accounting for more deaths than cancer, heart disease, influenza, pneumonia, diabetes, HIV and stroke combined.
In children 5 to 11 years of age, it was the 11th leading cause of death, a statistic that has remained constant over the last two decades. Despite the stable rate, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics found a trend during this period in this group of children that had previously not been recognized: there was a significant increase in the suicide rate among black children and a significant decline in the suicide rate among white children.
This study was initiated because there was limited information about suicides in children younger than 10 years of age, so using 20 years of data from January 1, 1993, to December 31, 2012, the authors investigated trends and characteristics of suicide victims aged 5 to 11 years. During these years, 657 children committed suicide in the United States; 84 percent were boys. The rate for white children dropped by nearly one-third, while for black children, it nearly doubled. Further analysis is recommended to identify the factors that contribute to this racial disparity, but the study did say that black children experience disproportionate exposure to violence, traumatic stress and aggressive school discipline. They are also less likely to seek help for depression, suicide ideation and suicide attempts. The study encouraged suicide prevention organizations to work more closely with educators on identifying warning signs of suicide and mental health issues

MEMORIAL DAY: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old” | http://bit.ly/1HGjbEj


EVENTS: Coming up next week...
06/02/2015 4:00 pm :: SUCCESSFUL SCHOOL CLIMATE COMMITTEE -CANCELLED

*Dates and times subject to change.
________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213-241-5183
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213-241.8700


• LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR



What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
George.McKenna@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Monica.Ratliff@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
...or your city councilperson, mayor, the governor, member of congress, senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • Find your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Brown: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• If you are eligible to become a citizen, BECOME ONE.
• If you a a citizen, REGISTER TO VOTE.
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. THEY DO!


Who are your elected federal & state representatives? How do you contact them?




Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and was Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and has represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for over 12 years. He is a Health Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT "WHO" Gold Award and the ACSA Regional Ferd Kiesel Memorial Distinguished Service Award - honors he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids.
• FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 4LAKids makes such material available in an effort to advance understanding of education issues vital to parents, teachers, students and community members in a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
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Sunday, May 24, 2015

It's complicated



4LAKids: Sunday 24•May•2015 Memorial Day Weekend
In This Issue:
 •  NEW LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD HAUNTED BY OLD PROBLEMS
 •  “No one wants to be the next LA Unified.” LAUSD’s iPADS: WHAT WENT WRONG? …AND WHAT DO WE NEED TO LEARN?
 •  HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
 •  EVENTS: Coming up next week...
 •  What can YOU do?


Featured Links:
 •  Give the gift of a 4LAKids Subscription to a friend or colleague!
 •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting "Follow 4LAKids" to 40404
 •  4LAKids Anthology: All the Past Issues, solved, resolved and unsolved!
 •  4LAKidsNews: a compendium of recent items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, rants and amusing anecdotes, etc.
The electorate have spoken.

Probably only in the Electoral College do so few voters decide an election as was decided for the LAUSD Board of Education last Tuesday. 7.64% of eligible voters voted. $726.61 was spent by the campaigns and Political Action Committees for each vote cast. I’m sure I’ve read 20+ words for every vote cast about what it all means.

The most succinct appraisal was Diane Ravitch’s: “It was a wash.”

Being a pundit - if not a card-carrying/fully-fledged member of the pundocracy, at least a member of the pundit class - I can’t leave it at that.

Q: A Kayser staffer at the Kayser “Victory Party” asked me – just as the inevitable (washed down with beer and wine and cheese nibbles) was sinking in: Was I already writing my reaction piece?
A: I was listening and making note – the most elemental part of writing. Driving there I passed multi-car freeway pileup: all firetrucks, twisted metal and dazed survivors standing on the shoulder. Surely that was a metaphor. Move along. Nothing to see here.

Let me add my two-cents worth.


IT’S REALLY VERY SIMPLE. The voters voted the rascals out. It didn’t matter where they stood, how much money they raised or how many fliers they flew. If they were in – they were out. (Note: The previous line is best read with Heidi Klum’s accent.)

It was an overwhelming vote of no confidence in the current situation/the status-quo-of-the-moment/the stasis. And it leaves us exactly where we were …but with a couple of new faces on opposite sides of issues: A celebration of an Opposite Day that lasts for five-and-a-half-years

Two incumbents of completely different political persuasions+(in)sensibilities were defeated. One incumbent survived – but not by all-that-much when one considers that his opponent had little money and a reputation as a whack job. To Lincoln’s admonition “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time” – we need to add the caveat that you can apparently buy some of the people some of the time.

(In the City Council Race David Ryu, the outsider won handily even though his opponent Carolyn Ramsey was supported by the termed-out incumbent, the mayor, the city council president and the LA Times. Mayor Garcetti didn’t do well in his support for Tamar Galatzan either.)

There are some that say it was a referendum on iPads or educational technology. Or perhaps John Deasy. Or testing or Common Core or charter schools or Corporate ®eform. That Deasy supported Tamar Galatzan when her opponent accused her of being a Deasy supporter probably wasn’t $500-worth-of-helpful; Ref Rodriguez took Deasy’s money – but $500 was a meaningless contribution in his multi-million-dollar effort.

IT WAS A STRANGE ELECTION; many of the lessons to be learned are meaningless. We will never have another like it again because of Charter Amendments 1 and 2 - which passed back in March to move city and L.A. Unified school board elections to June, with a November runoff, in even-numbered years along with state and federal elections. No more March and May. No more odd numbered years. No more one or two races on the ballot in regular elections.

• In terms of politics, Scott Schmerelson framed his argument that Tamar Galatzan was a Deasy supporter. Time for a change. He won.
• Ref Rodriguez and his supporters framed his argument that Bennett Kayser was for iPads, against charter schools, brown children and was clumsy with a coffee cup. Time for a change. He won.
• Lydia Gutiérrez got painted as a tea party Republican, had little-to-no money and got a hell of a lot of votes for someone so burdened in her race against Richard Vladovic (who was supported by the unions and the charter folks). Not quite time for that much change!
• In the city council race David Ryu was a Korean from Koreatown - a convincing argument on the face of it ...except Koreatown is predominantly Hispanic. LeBonge was old+old school - he wore us all out and we could vote against him and business as usual without actually voting against him. Time for a change. Ryu won.

The voters who voted – and 65% of them voted by mail, some voting almost a month before Election Day - decided that the incumbents were not effective at governing the District. More of a “I’m-Mad-As-Hell-and-I’m-Not-Going-To-Take-It-Anymore”/”Toss-The-Rascals-Out” mentality than anything else.

Sarah Bradshaw, Kayser’s chief-of-staff, in a moment of pure wit+insight said Bennett’s election was lost in the Absentee Vote ...because the campaign was absent when the voters were voting!

In voting early, early voters were not aware/informed of late developments in the races and of the obscene amounts invested by outside donors. In the Kayser/Rodriguez board race they missed the news that one of Ref’s PUC Charter schools was in serious legal and financial hot water; in all elections early voters missed how ugly the campaigning got. In Kayser’s case the traditional polling place voters skewed+trended in his favor …but the early voters trumped the surge.


THE SWINGING PENDULUM MEETS THE REVOLVING DOOR. In the case of Board District Three, the ®eform Inc. vs. Teachers’ Union incumbents have alternated in the seat. It was Caprice Young’s seat when Caprice was Mayor Riordan’s candidate; Caprice was defeated by Jon Lauritzen, a UTLA stalwart. Mayor Tony ran Tamar Galatzan against Lauritzen and now Tamar has lost to Scott Schmerleson, the union supported candidate.

In Board District Five David Tokofsky first had union and mayoral support, then lost the mayor but won reelection – then left the seat to have it picked up by Villaraigosa candidate Yolie Flores. Yolie was about as pro-®eform as they get, but didn’t run again. UTLA’s Bennett Kayser defeated Mayor Tony+Monica Garcia’s handpicked Luis Sanchez in a squeaker in ®eform’s attempt to buy that election – and now the pendulum has swung back to Charters+®eform Inc. with Ref Rodriguez.

End of the world? Not quite. Armageddon has been avoided, dystopia averted. Looking at the score card it looks like a draw/a wash/a flip-flop. Is a tie a win by more than one side? …or a loss equally shared?


FUTURE SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS WILL BE DIFFERENT. It will be a long ballot and school board races will be deep down in it. Congresspeople and assemblymembers and state senators will be on the ballot; the mayor and half the city council. Judges. Initiatives+Referenda. The political money and effort will be spread thinner, the phone banks will be tied up – the political consultants already employed. It will be easier to get folks to vote and harder to get them to pay attention. Or pay money to your campaign.

IT IS ALL VERY COMPLICATED.

• Things are going to be testy on the board as the players figure out what their roles are.
• The current board (with lame duck members) must set the budget the next board – with the ducks long gone – will be accountable for.
• The Inspector General has an investigation ongoing of PUC Charter Schools. PUC’s CEO is now on the Board of Ed. the IG reports directly to the board.
• Who will the next board president be? The rules say it can’t be Dr. Vladovic – but the rules can be changed. In a moment at the last meeting when he didn’t know his mic was on Dr. V. pretty much said he was looking forward to not being the president.
• Mr. Zimmer and Mr. Rodriguez – despite the campaign vitriol – are going to have to figure how they can work together when that makes sense.
• We won’t have the two attorneys from The Valley constantly trying to square off and argue every legal point while their attorney – the General Counsel – waits+watches.
• The political split will continue be generally pro-educator/®eform-averse. There will now be five members on the board with administrator’s credentials and six with classroom teaching experience.
• There will be surprises. Watch this space.


I MUST SAY THIS and then I need to step back from the ledge. This is Memorial Day weekend and the following is in no way In Memoriam: That honor and this holiday is earned+deserved by those who gave us their last full measure of devotion.

TAMAR GALATZAN is sometimes a disruptive force. She was brought onto the board to follow Mayor Tony’s lead and she really isn’t a follower. On occasion – when she wasn’t bored or just angry she could be a voice of reason – especially on issues that sometimes don’t get enough attention like procurement …although she let the iPad procurement slip-through unquestioned and defended it and the leadership that proposed it as it+they descended into chaos. She first won her seat by defeating a man with terminal cancer. That seemed politically heartless …but he really shouldn’t have been the candidate.

BENNETT KAYSER is one of the most decent men I have ever met – and a good friend to me and kids and parents and teachers and public education. There is a crazy selflessness that afflicts middle school educators like a mutant gene: ‘Who, in their right mind, would return there?’ Bennett possesses this in spades. The victory-at-all-costs campaign waged against him was particularly brutal and unnecessarily hurtful to him, his wife Peggy and his friends, colleagues and family. ‘It’s not personal, it’s politics’ is easy to say and tougher to live. Forgiveness+forgetting will be harder to come by from his friends than from Bennett.

“A righteous man does not conceive of himself as righteous; he is ‘only doing what anyone else would do,’ except, of course, that no one else does it.” ― Martin Berman-Gorvine, 36

Nothing to see here. We pick up the pieces and move along.

¡Onward/Adelante! – smf


MEMORIAL DAY, 150 YEARS AGO: An illustrated recounting of the first Decoration Day



NEW LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD HAUNTED BY OLD PROBLEMS
by Annie Gilbertson | KPCC 89.3 | http://bit.ly/1AnpHzT
Audio from this story | 0:58 Listen: http://bit.ly/1LytcVk

May 20 2015 :: When the Los Angeles Unified School District's two new board members take their seats, they'll face this glaring projection for the next school year: the district will have about 5,000 fewer students.

Tuesday's general election swept out two incumbents in a continuing show of voter dissatisfaction with the status quo. But it also swept in board members who are on opposite sides of an ongoing political power struggle between charter school interests and the teachers union.

After millions in campaign contributions and a dismal school board turnout of 7.6 percent of registered voters, the result was a political draw between the two forces.

Declining enrollment makes it all the more challenging for the new board to invest in improvements to stem the exodus. Each student who leaves is a loss of about $10,000 in state funds.

Scott Schmerelson, board member-elect for the West San Fernando Valley's District 3, said piquing parents interest so they send or keep their children in the district comes down to creating successful schools.

"It's not to fight with charter schools, but let them know traditional public schools have a lot to offer – open the doors, let them see," Schmerelson said Wednesday.

L.A. Unified's shrinking student numbers can be attributed in part to fewer school aged-children in Los Angeles County, and the growth in charter schools. Charters serve nearly 100,000 of the district's 650,000 students.

Ref Rodriguez, board member-elect for east Los Angeles and a charter school administrator, suggests all schools start sharing best practices in educating students.

"And, charter schools have a great role around incubation, but this is happening at many schools across this district," he said.

Board President Richard Vladvoic, the only contested incumbent who held on to his seat Tuesday, said the district could start making traditional schools more attractive by presenting parents with more choices.

"We may need, as a board, to offer more thematic schools and more alternatives," Vladovic said. Options may include expanding magnet school offerings that can tailor instruction based on students' interests or creating small learning communities with more individualized teaching.

While Gov. Jerry Brown's latest revised budget calls for billions more in K-12 spending statewide, much of the new funding will be one-time allocations, while falling enrollment has long-term implications.

The new board may find itself facing a choice: find ways to increase enrollment or shave services.

The new board members will be sworn in July 1.


“No one wants to be the next LA Unified.” LAUSD’s iPADS: WHAT WENT WRONG? …AND WHAT DO WE NEED TO LEARN?
WHAT SCHOOLS MUST LEARN FROM LA’S IPAD DEBACLE
Issie Lapowsky | WIRED | http://wrd.cm/1FbNvbX

05.08.15. | 7:00 am. :: When Los Angeles schools began handing out iPads in the fall of 2013, it looked like one of the country’s most ambitious rollouts of technology in the classroom. The city’s school district planned to spend $1.3 billion putting iPads, preloaded with the Pearson curriculum, in the hands of every student in every school.

Less than two years later, that ambitious plan now looks like a spectacularly foolish one. In August, the Los Angeles Unified School District halted its contract with Apple, as rumors swirled that Apple and Pearson may have received preferential treatment in the district’s procurement process, something the FBI is investigating. Then, this spring, the district sent a letter to Apple seeking a refund, citing crippling technical issues with the Pearson platform and incomplete curriculum that made it nearly impossible for teachers to teach. If a deal can’t be reached, the district could take legal action. (Apple did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.)

Pearson, whose stock tumbled following the news, has publicly defended the curriculum it provided LAUSD, which included digital learning content for math and English courses 1. LAUSD’s director of the so-called Instructional Technology Initiative, on the other hand, denounced the material as utterly unusable in a memo earlier this year.

But while the the parties involved continue pointing the finger and picking up the pieces, the important question to ask now is what this fiasco means for the future of technology in the classroom. If one of the country’s largest school districts, one of the world’s largest tech companies, and one of the most established brands in education can’t make it work, can anyone?


Experts who have been following LAUSD’s troubled tech rollout say that while this does not mean education technology is inherently flawed, it does illustrate just how difficult a program like this is to pull off. Rather than proving these programs are hopeless, they say LA may have provided other districts and tech providers with an unfortunate, yet vivid, blueprint of what not to do. Learning from LA’s mistakes, they say, is critical to ensuring that already resource-strapped schools won’t continue spending precious funding on misguided programs.

“No one wants to be the next LA Unified,” says Michael Horn, executive director of the education program at the Clay Christensen Institute. “I think that’s healthy, and it will get people to pause and learn the bigger lesson.”

‘THE CLASSIC CASE’

According to Horn, who also is author of Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools, Los Angeles is a classic case of a school district getting caught up in the ed tech frenzy without fully thinking through why technology is important in the first place.

“LA is emblematic of a problem we’re seeing across the country right now,” he says. “Districts are starting with the technology and not asking themselves: ‘What problem are we trying to solve, and what’s the instructional model we need to solve it?’ and then finding technology in service of that.”

At the crux of the FBI’s investigation into LA’s iPad program are emails exchanged between then-Superintendent John Deasy and executives from Pearson, in which Deasy expresses his excitement about being able to work with Pearson and Apple. The only problem is, the emails were sent a year before LAUSD started the bidding process with other vendors, indicating the deck was stacked before the district had a chance to vet other providers or come up with a comprehensive plan for using and managing the technology.

It’s not unusual even in an above-board bidding process for districts to start by choosing a vendor, instead of first discussing how that technology will be used in the first place

That’s an extreme example, Horn admits. But he says it’s not unusual even in an above-board bidding process for districts to start by choosing a vendor, instead of first discussing how that technology will be used in the first place.

“A lot of schools get into trouble when the conversation starts with the vendor,” Horn says. “Where I’ve seen these programs work is when the school starts off with its vision, and only once they’ve sketched out what the solution should look like do they go out to the hardware and software communities to mix and match to meet those needs.”

THE MILPITAS MODEL

That was the approach that Cary Matsuoka, Superintendent of California’s Milpitas Unified School District, took when he began bringing Chromebooks into district schools in 2012. Milpitas, a town of 70,000 outside San Jose, often is held up as a successful example of how technology can enable more personalized education, even in a district school setting, and that has a lot to do with how Matsuoka went about designing the program. In spring 2012, he challenged principals throughout the district to present a compelling answer to the question: If you could design the school of the future, what would it look like?

The goal, Matsuoka says, was to give principals and teachers the autonomy to determine what would work best for their schools rather than mandating change from the top. “Any time you control things from the top, you get compliance, where people just go through the motions,” Matsuoka says. “We wanted to say: ‘Here’s the model. Come up with your version of it and go test it.'”

Any time you control things from the top, you get compliance, where people just go through the motions.' Cary Matsuoka

It was through that process that Matsuoka realized having one device per student wasn’t actually necessary. Instead, the principals proposed a rotation model, in which students would take shifts on the devices. “Part of that was about cost” Matsuoka admits, “but there’s also the important question to ask, which is, what would you do if you had the one-to-one environment? How would you take advantage of that?”

Instead, Milpitas started with 2,000 Chromebooks, because they’re less expensive than iPads and are cloud-based, so they can be centrally managed and updated. Now, the district has 6,000 Chromebooks for 10,000 students and may continue to scale, depending on which schools and classrooms could benefit from more devices.

THE CURRICULUM PROBLEM

But the abundance of expensive hardware wasn’t the central problem in LA. It was Pearson’s curriculum that proved most troublesome. In her memo, Bernadette Lucas, the initiative’s director, wrote that less than 5 percent of students had consistent access to the content due to technical issues, and that some students had no access at all for months. As of March, all but two schools had stopped using the Pearson curriculum entirely.

In a statement to WIRED, a Pearson spokesperson said, “This was a large-scale implementation of new technologies and there have been challenges with the initial adoption, but we stand by the quality of our performance.”

For Horn, such problems occur when ed tech companies design their software in a vacuum. “A lot of people will say, ‘Our program works great when you use it for this long and in this way,'” he says. “The question is: Do schools use it that way?'”

You can make a change that makes sense on its own, but when it’s introduced to the complex setting of a school, the net effect is negative.' Max Ventilla

That’s one reason startups like AltSchool are working on building schools and technology simultaneously. “It is so hard to be the setting in which a child learns in a school that if you don’t run schools yourself, and deal with all the practicalities around everything from technology to lunch to transportation, you risk missing everything below the water line,” says Max Ventilla, founder and CEO of AltSchool.

“What’s tough about education is things are so complex and connected that sometimes, you can make a change that makes sense on its own, but when it’s introduced to the complex setting of a school, the net effect is negative.”

And yet, according to Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, the stodgy education procurement system isn’t always set up to find the best technology solutions for schools, regardless of how that technology was designed. “There’s a rising tension between the folks who want to move new tools and learning programs into school systems and a pretty archaic procurement system that can easily stand in the way,” she says. “Smaller companies are saying, ‘We just don’t have a chance against the big companies.”

Lake says that is the fatal mistake LAUSD made, but the district is not alone. “School systems in general do not do a good job on R&D,” she says. “They’re built to work with one or two companies that will provide a one-size-fits-all solution, and that’s not how technology is moving.”

Horn agrees, adding that while schools need more thoughtful ways of selecting tech vendors, the vendors need to be more thoughtful about selling to schools. “Of course device companies are trying to sell devices, but if they don’t want this big blowback on edtech, then it’d be prudent to take a long term mindset and really help these districts think through a more strategic planning process before they implement the program.”

Lake says some cities, like New York, have found ways around this procurement problem. In 2010, the Big Apple launched its so-called iZone program, which was designed specifically to connect startups and developers to the city’s schools. “New York said, ‘We actually have to cultivate a marketplace if we want to find these solutions,” says Lake, who hopes to see more cities taking New York’s lead.
Not Giving Up

Los Angeles, for its part, says it’s not giving up on technology in the classroom. “We’re still very much moving forward in technology and continuing to deliver devices to schools,” a spokesperson for the district told WIRED.

For now, the iPads with Pearson’s curriculum are still being used in 58 schools, but students and teachers are using them simply to access other apps. Meanwhile, after cutting short its initial contract with Apple and Pearson, last winter, LA’s school board approved another $40 million for more iPads, as well as Chromebooks. Those devices aren’t loaded with Pearson’s content and are being used exclusively for testing.

The difference is now, under the leadership of Superintendent Ramon Cortines, the district is trying to learn from its mistakes and do some serious strategic planning before expanding the program further. The district has formed a task force, which will develop a new plan for using technology in the classroom and present it to the superintendent and school board next year.

Los Angeles has not given up on technology in the classroom.

The group has four key questions: What will students learn? How will students learn? What resources will be needed? How will it work? These are questions anyone can see the district should have asked long before it purchased a single iPad. But they are critical questions to ask, no matter how late they may be.

During the task force’s first meeting in April, Cortines emphasized how critical this process was in a statement to members, “You have a monumental job ahead of you,” he said. “We have spent more than $100 million dollars on this project and it is now time to regroup and develop a solid plan that allows us to move forward and leverage technology as a tool to improve teaching and learning for our students.”

______________


WHAT WENT WRONG WITH L.A. UNIFIED’S iPAD PROGRAM? To put it simply: There was a complete breakdown in the planning and execution of the initiative.
by Tod Newcombe / Government Technology | http://bit.ly/1KfOMjw

This story was originally published by Governing Magazine [http://bit.ly/1B7A1qE] as:
A CAUTIONARY TALE FOR ANY GOVERNMENT IT PROJECT: L.A.'S FAILED IPAD PROGRAM
How did Los Angeles spend more than $1 billion to buy an iPad for every student and instead end up losing its leader and being investigated by the FBI and SEC?


May 14, 2015 :: Two years ago, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) tried an interesting new experiment: give every student a tablet computer equipped with a digital curriculum. It was a bold move that was supposed to push Los Angeles public schools into the 21st century. It turned out to be a disaster.

The idea was certainly huge, requiring the purchase of 650,000 Apple iPads, networking gear and educational software from Pearson -- all at a cost of nearly $1.3 billion. L.A. Schools Superintendent John Deasy, who launched the program in 2013, also saw it as a way to help the city’s low-income students. Until Deasy’s announcement, students had limited access to digital education tools at computer labs, which couldn’t accommodate all students at the same time.

Today, LAUSD is exploring possible litigation against Apple and Pearson, the world’s largest education publishing company, to recoup millions of dollars; a criminal grand jury is investigating possible ethics violations by district officials; the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Securities and Exchange Commission have launched their own inquiries into possible wrong-doing; and Deasy resigned.

So what went wrong? To put it simply: a complete breakdown in the planning and execution of the initiative. The Los Angeles Times labeled the mega-technology project “ill-conceived and half-baked.”

In fall 2012, Deasy announced to school administrators his plan to give a tablet computer to every student. Convinced the highly popular technology was going to be the future of education and that low-income students would struggle academically if he didn’t move quickly, Deasy gave LAUSD only a few months to generate a plan before putting the initiative out to bid in 2013, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Education.

In June 2013, the Board of Education approved a contract with Apple and Pearson worth $500 million and set aside another $800 million to improve Internet access at schools. The entire purchase was funded by construction bonds, which are typically used to build and repair schools.

LAUSD bought 43,261 iPads loaded with a curriculum, which the school district selected from Pearson based only on samples of a math and English program available at the time. Problems surfaced immediately during the rollout at 47 schools in fall 2013.

Internet connectivity was spotty at some schools, partly because the district’s facilities chief was not included in the planning process for upgrading school networks to carry the heavy data demands of so many devices connecting to the Internet. Teachers were ill-trained on how to use the iPads and curriculum, and faculty never widely embraced the tablet, according to the Department of Education report. And many students learned how to bypass the security features and just used the iPads to surf the Internet.

With problems occurring almost daily with either the technology or the curriculum, Deasy slowed down the rollout. But criticism of the initiative from teachers, administrators and the local media kept mounting, and under pressure, Deasy resigned in October 2014. In December, LAUSD officially ended the initiative and canceled the Apple contract -- though schools and students continue to use the existing iPads.

In addition to poor planning, the Department of Education's review of the initiative found LAUSD was too “heavily dependent on a single commercial product for providing digital learning resources.” While the district followed state guidelines for purchasing hardware that aligned with Common Core standards, a report released in August 2014 by the LAUSD board showed that the district had added detailed specifications regarding screen size and touchscreen functionality that heavily favored Apple and essentially excluded other technology options.

Media reports also detailed how bid requirements seemed to track with curriculum specifications suggested by Pearson in private email exchanges before the bidding process opened. The FBI has since launched an investigation into questions about whether Apple and Pearson enjoyed an advantage in the bidding process.

Beyond the issue of whether or not Apple and Pearson had an inside track in winning the bid, LAUSD has been faulted for choosing one rather expensive device when less expensive choices were available. Devices with keyboards might have been a better option, for instance, since older students could have used them to write papers. Google’s Chromebook, for example, is a laptop that can cost as little as $200, while LAUSD paid $768 apiece for its iPads, including the software, according to the Times.

The SEC in April also launched an inquiry into whether L.A. school officials complied with legal guidelines in the use of bond funds to finance the iPad deal. Using construction bonds to purchase Internet infrastructure is common, but the LAUSD also used money from the bonds to purchase the iPads, which break down after a few years. Some critics of the plan have said LAUSD should have set aside a sum from its operating budget to purchase the tablets.

Meanwhile, LAUSD took action of its own in April, announcing it would seek to recoup millions of dollars from Apple because it was “dissatisfied with their product.” The district’s demands for a refund stem from materials that didn't adapt well for students who weren't proficient in English and a lack of software tools to analyze how well the curriculum functions.

Government technology projects often fail because policymakers take too long to deploy them, so they miss deadlines and end up with out-of-date technology. But as LAUSD’s fiasco showed, moving quickly can be just as disastrous. Without proper planning, a technology project of this size and scope is bound to fail.

Another important lesson from this story is how a district’s reliance on one type of technology can end up limiting the value of that investment. Students of different ages have different needs and no one device is necessary or sufficient to solve all education problems.

Computers are nothing more than tools that can help educate students when they are used as part of a well-planned curriculum. Unfortunately, that point was lost when Los Angeles let the glamour of a new and popular product cloud its judgement.

• Tod Newcombe | Senior Editor: With more than 20 years of experience covering state and local government, Tod previously was the editor of Public CIO, e.Republic’s award-winning publication for information technology executives in the public sector. He is now a senior editor for Government Technology and a columnist at Governing magazine


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EVENTS: Coming up next week...


*Dates and times subject to change. ________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213-241-5183
____________________________________________________
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Phone: 213-241.8700


• LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR



What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
George.McKenna@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Monica.Ratliff@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
...or your city councilperson, mayor, the governor, member of congress, senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • Find your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Brown: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
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Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and was Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and has represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for over 12 years. He is a Health Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT "WHO" Gold Award and the ACSA Regional Ferd Kiesel Memorial Distinguished Service Award - honors he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids.
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