• RFID chips let schools track students -- and retain funding -- but some parents object

    Nightly News

    Students wear IDs embedded with electronic chips.

    Charles Hadlock, NBC News writes

    SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- Two San Antonio schools have turned to radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to help administrators count and track the whereabouts of students on campus.

    Students at Anson Jones Middle School and John Jay High School are required to wear ID cards imbedded with electronic chips, similar to highway toll tags, which allow schools to more accurately record daily attendance.  Public school funding is often tied to the number of students attending class each day. The Northside Independent School District in San Antonio receives about $30 per day in state funding for each student reporting present.

    The RFID tracking system can help schools count students who are in the school building, but may have missed the morning roll call.  On a recent morning at Anson Jones Middle School, where 1,200 attend, the traditional roll call counted 71 students absent.  But the RFID system indicated that eight of those 71 were actually in school that day.  A map indicated several students were in the band hall, where practice was running late, while others were near the office.  That’s eight times $30 or $240 the school would have lost that day in funding. 

    Pascual Gonzalez, Northside’s communications director, estimates the entire district has been losing about $1.7 million a year because of underreported attendance. He says the RFID system, which costs $261,000, should pay for itself in the first year.

    “The revenues that are generated by locating kids who are not in their chairs to answer ‘present,’ but are in the building  –  in the counselor’s office, in the cafeteria, in the hallway, in the gym  –  if we can show they were, in fact, in school, then we can count them present,” he said.

    Principal Wendy Reyes says the system has the added benefit of allowing her to find a particular student instantly.  “Sometimes it’s difficult to locate a student in a sea of 1,200 others, so this helps locate them in an emergency,” she said.

    The ID tags can only be read on campus, so students cannot be tracked outside the building.

    Some parents and students fear the radio ID tags are just too much Big Brother.

    Steve Hernandez, whose daughter is a sophomore, objects to the tags on Biblical grounds.  He compared the badges to the “mark of the beast” as described in the Book of Revelations.  “My daughter,” he says, “should not have to compromise (her) religion just because Northside Independent School District wants to get paid.”

    The American Civil Liberties Union calls the RFID tags “dehumanizing.”

    “What kind of lesson does it teach our children if they’re chipped like cattle and their every movement tracked?” asks Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the ACLU’s Washington, D.C. office.  “It doesn’t create the kind of independent, autonomous people that we want in our democratic society.”

    Gonzalez, Northside’s spokesman, says school administrators have no intention of spying on students.

    “There’s a misconception that somebody’s sitting in a room with a bank full of monitors looking at where 1,200 kids are here at Anson Middle School. That’s not true,” he said. “It’s not even feasible. We’re not staffed nor are we interested in knowing where all the kids are at a particular moment.”

    What the RFID system does do, according to Gonzales, is provide an accurate, daily census of students, which helps the district make money. Based on early results, the district may consider expanding the RFID system to its other 109 schools, encompassing nearly 100,000 students.

  • Arizona school students seize learning day with computer-based lessons

    A public charter school in Arizona is taking a new, computer-based approach to teaching its students. NBC's Rehema Ellis reports.

    NBC's Janelle Richards writes

    Sevanna Power sits at her workstation, completing her daily assignments. She's logged into a computer, which is where she does most of her lessons and coursework. Power is a seventh-grader at Carpe Diem Collegiate High School and Middle School in Yuma, Arizona. This is her second year attending the charter school where there are no traditional classrooms.

    "I do miss [classrooms]," Power said. "Because I had a lot of fun with reading and we still do that here, but I like to hold books too, so it's just interesting to not have that now."

    At Carpe Diem, students use computers to work at their own pace. The middle and high schoolers kick off the day in the learning center, then rotate between completing online assignments and going into classes -- where they receive direct instruction from teachers in what they call workshops. 

    "There are lectures on the computer but it's very one dimensional. There's one way to explain things and some children don't get that ... that's why we have the workshops," said Chet Crain, dean of students at Carpe Diem. "So a student who doesn't understand, say, dividing fractions, they've listened to the lecture on their computer but they still don't get it, then they can come to the workshop and ask our math teacher to please explain this another way. And by using projects, by using manipulatives and by using whatever it takes, we will make that student successful."

    Carpe Diem students share their experience in the program and the transition from traditional classrooms.

    Organizers say this blended learning model allows students to pursue their individual education plans. Floor staff is always on hand in case students need help. Some say the mix of technology and teacher interaction at Carpe Diem is what's necessary to educate kids in the 21st century.

    Dan Harvey, who has three children enrolled in the school, called it the best of both worlds, describing the setup as unique because of the "traditional aspects with the workshops and the classrooms, but then the individual nature of it. We've got five kids and they're all very different … this kind of enables them to kind of do their own pace and go their own speed."

    Larry Cuban, education professor emeritus at Stanford University, said that while this type of model may work for some, it's not one size fits all -- and more research needs to be done because "very few studies are done independent of the schools of themselves. And so the evidence isn't there. But that doesn't mean that people are not going to try it. There are a lot of things tried in American schools that have very little evidence or research to support them." 

    Cuban said he understands why blended learning is attractive to educators and families.

    Carpe Diem administrators and teachers explain the importance of the blended learning model and why moving away from a traditional classroom prepares students for the future.

    “Parents want their kids to be treated as individuals" and "[blended learning] programs promise that there will be more individualized teaching and learning by the students," he said.

    He also pointed to cost, explaining "you don't need as many teachers. And that is attractive ... when a lot of districts are letting teachers go, when there is a smaller teacher force now."

    Carpe Diem’s four academic teachers agreed that the program is not for everyone, but the test results are promising: 90 percent of Carpe Diem students are proficient in core subjects, compared to about 70 percent statewide, according to the Arizona Department of Education.

    Many Carpe Diem students used to attend more traditional schools and said there are pros and cons to both.

    "I like the fact of how flexible [Carpe Diem] is," said seventh-grader Timothy Harvey. "I can't take tests at home, so if I wanna do work from home I can, on the weekends or after school if I feel that I want to, or if my parents want me to do some work, or I need to if I'm behind."

    For Kristina Felix, a senior, the undivided attention she receives from the same teacher every year and the ability to work at her own pace are a plus.

    "It's really great, like I get to communicate more with them," Felix said. "There's less people here so I feel less pressured; I don't have to compare myself to other people ... I wanna be a nurse and with this I think it's really helping me a lot."

  • Chicago strike reveals a broken system

    The Chicago Teachers Union agreed on Tuesday to end its strike, allowing 350,000 students to return to classes on Wednesday and ending a tense standoff. However, the contract still requires ratification by the union's 26,000 members. NBC's Rehema Ellis reports.

    Rehema Ellis writes

    NEWS ANALYSIS 

    CHICAGO – Now that the Chicago teachers strike has ended, it is inevitable that people will try to figure out who won and who lost. But more might be gained if we went beyond that.

    What if more time were spent thinking about what students and the country gained from this strike, because it focused attention on the debate over teacher evaluations, the weight that is given to standardized tests and the growing demand for education reform?

    Broken system
    A lot has been said about the need to get rid of bad teachers and the union that protects them. The truth is union leaders will tell you they don’t like bad teachers, either. But the union would argue that it’s not their job to weed out bad teachers. Rather, they say, school leaders should do a better job identifying bad teachers and weeding them out.

    In Chicago, according to a 2009 report by the New Teachers Project, 91 percent of teachers were rated “superior” or “excellent” by school principals. Out of the nearly 30,000 teachers in the city public school system, only a small fraction received an “unsatisfactory” rating. But with student achievement at such a low level, clearly something must be wrong with how the evaluations were being done.

    So this is a good time to consider who’s responsible, in addition to teachers, for what happens in school. I spoke with several teachers on the picket line over the past few days who were concerned that they didn’t have books to start the school year. Why isn’t everyone up in arms about that? 

    Other teachers told me that they were assigned to classrooms outside of their area of expertise. One woman on the picket line told me she had taught English last year but she was trained to be a gym teacher. “I just tried to help out where there was a need,” she said. 

    Biggest losers of Chicago's teachers strike? The students, critic says

    Does anyone really believe she is the best English teacher for Chicago kids?  


    Should those students and that teacher be judged on how well she’s able to prepare them to take a standardized test?

    And don’t think this is an isolated, one-of-a-kind situation.  It’s not.  You will find similar stories in schools all across this nation.

    In Finland, where students far out perform American kids, they don’t take standardized tests at all. Students are measured by how well they do on their classroom work and drills.

    There is a collective national will in Finland to educate all students, and there’s a plan to succeed. Finland starts by hiring the best and the brightest to teach. Finnish teachers are required to have a master’s degree and teachers come from the top 10 percent of college graduates. Compare that to the U.S., where 47 percent of America’s teachers come from the bottom third of their class, according to a 2010 McKinsey report.

    Chicago teachers agree to end strike, classes to resume Wednesday

    Big issue: poverty
    Then there’s the issue of poverty and safety and how it affects teaching and learning.

    Mayor Rahm Emanuel went to court this week seeking an injunction to force an end to the strike claiming, in part, the walkout was a threat to “public health and safety.”

    As many as 87 percent of the public school children come from low-income families, according to figures from Chicago Public Schools.   

    More than 90 percent of them qualify for the free or reduced breakfast and lunch program.  For many, school is where they go, not just for an education, but for food. 

    It’s also where many children go to feel safe in a city stricken by far too much violence.

    The teachers hit the picket line demanding money, a fair evaluation system and job security but, they also wanted more social workers in the schools to help them help children who have been traumatized living in broken homes and broken neighborhoods.

    According to the Chicago Public Schools Employee Roster, there are 382 social workers in the school district that serves 350,000 students.  If my math is correct, that amounts to about one social worker for every 916 students. 

    “That means social workers are doing paper work because they don’t have time to do much of anything else,” said Lorraine Forte of Catalyst Chicago, an independent newsmagazine dedicated to reporting on urban education.  

    Education Nation: Get involved in our 2012 summit, Sept. 23-25

    Not unique
    Chicago’s school problems are not unique.  Poverty, crime and lack of resources affect schools all across the country.

    Experts are quick to point out that none of these issues should be used as an excuse for failing to educate America’s children. Teachers, city leaders, policy makers and education reform advocates all agree that these factors also shouldn’t be left out of the conversation. And in fact, they aren’t – but real solutions need to be found.

    Chicago has presented an opportunity for the nation to take a closer, more thoughtful look at a multitude of reasons why schools and test scores and graduation rates are lacking.  It might also inspire us to look at schools that are working to see if they could be replicated. 

    That’s what we will be doing starting this Sunday when NBC launches its Third Annual Education Nation Summit.  But what’s wrong with America’s schools won’t be fixed if too much time is spent adding up winners and losers from one strike.

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  • 'Building Tomorrow' - one school at a time in Uganda

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    Chelsea Clinton visits with school children at the Building Tomorrow Academy of Gita, about an hour outside of Uganda's capital of Kampala.

    Chelsea Clinton writes

    KAMPALA, Uganda – The Building Tomorrow Academy of Gita, about an hour outside of Uganda’s capital city of Kampala, is an amazing example of what can be accomplished when local communities and international organizations work together toward innovative solutions to educational challenges.  

     
    While in Uganda last week, I met the dynamic tag team of George Srour, the American founder and “chief dreamer,” and Joseph Kalisa, the Ugandan country director, behind the school in Gita, as well as seven other Building Tomorrow “academies” in Uganda.
     
    Building Tomorrow’s mission in Uganda is to do more than just build one-room cookie-cutter school houses. So far they have built eight “academies” – each with seven classrooms and space for up to 325 elementary school students.
     
    And the best part is that schools like the one in Gita are built with robust local involvement: the school's surrounding communities help build them and the government promises to pay teacher salaries and ongoing operational costs after construction is complete.
     
    The result is a real public- civil society partnership that is showing real results – and clearly making a difference.    


    School project turns into dream
    Srour started BT in 2005, the same year he graduated from the College of William & Mary in Virginia.   
     
    The inspiration for BT grew out of a visit to Uganda and then a holiday fundraising campaign Srour spearheaded during his senior year at William and Mary called “Christmas in Kampala.” The campaign raised more than $45,000 for the construction of a new school in the capital city. 
     
    As Srour told me, he realized in his final months of college that raising money was necessary, but not sufficient to fundamentally change education in Uganda, a country with about 50 percent of the population under 15, according to the CIA World Factbook. He realized they needed to do more.  
     
    It is a place in which Srour has no family ties, but a clear calling. 
     
    When I asked Kalisa, a Ugandan, if he could imagine doing anything else? He said, “Only when we’re done.” Srour had the same answer.

     

    Barbara Kinney

    Chelsea Clinton visits with school children at the Building Tomorrow Academy of Gita, about an hour outside of Uganda's capital of Kampala.

     
    Gita school
    The school in Gita opened in 2010, the result of BT’s first – though not last – multidisciplinary collaboration with an American university partner. 
     
    In the 2007-2008 school year, undergraduate architecture and engineering students at the University of Virginia’s Architecture Studio reCOVER and its Engineering in Context Capstone Design Program designed Gita’s seven classrooms, its library, its latrines, its office space and its outdoor play and learning space (including a sports field and garden). 
     
    Other students from the University of Virginia raised money to help the architecture and engineering students’ plans become a reality, including a stationary bike ride ‘across Uganda,’ in which students rode more than 7,500 miles to help raise the necessary $60,000 to build and supply a BT Academy. 
     
    Srour and Kalisa clearly still couldn’t believe  –  even years later  – so many people rode so many miles so far away to help kids in Gita, in rural Uganda.
     
    Although the design and funding came from the University of Virginia, the local community around Gita built the school.  Through more than 20,000 hours of donated labor, prospective parents and grandparents made the BT Academy in Gita a reality. It was the best-looking, most inviting school we saw on our drive down the dirt road, and yes, still one made of mud and bricks and stone and with outdoor, though hygienic and private, latrines. 
     
    The kids were curious, the teachers engaged, the parents proud – and all treated their school space with dignity and respect.
     
    Sustainable model
    Ultimately, BT academies, including Gita, are public government schools.  Once the building is complete, BT in Uganda, through an agreement with the Ugandan government and with Kalisa’s supervision, selects high quality teachers who will make the most of the open, welcoming environment BT academies offer. 

    In a video diary, former President Bill Clinton talks about working with the charity City Year to help open a school library and vegetable garden for South African youth, and celebrating Nelson Mandela's 94th birthday.

    The Ugandan government then pays for the ongoing operating costs of the schools and the teachers’ and supervisors’ salaries.  This arrangement – versus many other efforts in the U.S. to raise money to build a school somewhere far away with no plans for what happens after the doors open – has a clear plan for sustainable impact: it creates clarity around what is the local community’s responsibility, what is the Ugandan government’s responsibility and what is BT’s responsibility. 
     
    That longer-term focus and clarity make BT distinctive – and more likely to have better results for its students, their parents – and their university partners back in the U.S.
     
    BT now has eight schools up and running in Uganda, with another six close to completion. More than 25 college and university campuses in the U.S. have contributed funds, designs and time to help more than 1,800 Ugandan kids get a better education – and future. 
     
    Next up: teacher academy


    One new area of focus for Srour and Kalisa is building teacher capacity – they are clearly concerned there are soon not going to be enough high caliber teachers for the schools they are building already and dreaming about. 
     
    Srour and Kalisa’s answer? Build a teacher training academy. 
     
    Chelsea Clinton is an NBC News Special Correspondent. She was recently traveling with her father, former President Bill Clinton, to visit Clinton Foundation, Clinton Health Access Initiative and Clinton Global Initiative projects in a number of sub-Saharan African countries, including Uganda. In 2011, Building Tomorrow made a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative to have built at least 60 schools in Uganda over the next 5 years.

     

     

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