Who's Behind the Curtain?

I ended up in two big educational debates this past week. One was about "clickers" - those "Classroom Response Systems" that are increasingly infiltrating our classrooms. The other, about Washington, D.C. Schools' Chancellor Michelle Rhee and "the reform agenda for schools" coming from America's financial elites.

In these debates I was abrupt, and cruel (sorry, David Brooks, I know you are only doing your job keeping Wall Street Republicans reading The New York Times, I shouldn't have gotten personal - and a very big apology to Roger Cohen, another NYT columnist, who I blamed in bizarre mix up), and perhaps, in a few moments, coherent and convincing. I read wonderful stuff from passionate people too.

But stepping back, I want to bring both these debates together, because, in the end, they are both about power, about who gets to control education in the United States (and thus who the "winners" in education will be), about who is pulling those levers from behind the curtain.

Michelle Rhee is riding the broomstick, but it is a different Wizard of Oz image I'm interested in...

We have two tidal events occurring here, but these are not natural tides, they are invented ones. And when people seek to create tides, I think we should always ask why.

So, in a higher educational establishment which, for example, has refused to even load their computers with free universal design software technologies, much less invest in those systems which might transform education for a vast array of students now failed by the system, we see broad adoption and massive spending on "clickers."

And, in a climate of broad K-12 system failure, with hundreds of fascinating alternative success examples from around the world, the US media establishment (Disney, Time-Warner, GE, Viacom, NYT Company) has declared one "leader" - a leader with no measurable accomplishments and a confrontational style which seems to drive almost everyone away - as education's messiah.

hero worship

But let's start with the "clickers." Michael Bugeja, a friend and technology in education sparring partner (and the Director of the Greenlee School of Journalism at Iowa State University) wrote a piece this past week in the Chronicle of Higher Education - a paid publication I rarely read and a paid website I rarely visit. His commentary, Classroom Clickers and the Cost of Technology, tracked the adoption pattern of these one-way communication systems on university campuses.

"Marketers seem to know our business better than we know theirs. That was apparent a few years ago, when publishers introduced infrared clickers bundled with specific textbooks or series of textbooks. In a class of 400 students, each of whom would spend $40 for a clicker, many institutions paid for the purchase and/or installation of receivers, in effect helping to sell the company's products. Companies suggested clickers for multiple-choice questions based on a book's content, an easy adaptation from previous instruction booklets with answer keys — not exactly innovative, but cost-effective, making books appear interactive overnight."

Bugeja - who I often debate regarding technology adoption in the classroom - but whom I deeply respect on the subject, even when we disagree - is concerned with the cost/benefit calculations behind the "clicker decision" as well as the key question of who is pulling the strings.

I have been "clear" about my position on clickers - calling them "Instant Anachronisms" and "Coercive Technology." Even when I see some possible benefit - bad lectures may be marginally better with clickers than without - I regard this technology as "insufficiently transformational" - that is, not worth the costs in a nation where students already can not afford higher education.

But the key issue here is "why"? Who has pushed this technology, and to what end. I joined in a fascinating debate on this at the blog of Derek Bruff, a math professor and director of the Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University, and major "clicker advocate). If you follow that debate, you'll see where it leads. Why is Turning Technologies selling clicker receivers cheaply? Is it because it hopes to tie Vanderbilt's faculty to the textbooks of its partners? Those partners? Thomson Learning, Glencoe McGraw-Hill, Dell Computers, Steljes Group. Oh. The primary distributors of the $150 textbook are "giving away" (sort of) systems which will seemingly guarantee the continued sale of $150 textbooks.

Those marketing Universal Design Technologies - Freedom Scientific, Text-Help, Kurzweil, etc, can't afford to "persuade" universities this way, but Thomson Learning (or is it Cengage now?) sure can. And thus we find "clickers" everywhere, and struggle to discover transformational technologies on our campuses.

Dr. Bugeja would want me to suggest that we always follow these trails. And when I sat in a meeting with Google's Jeff Keltner regarding Google Apps for Education this semester, I heard all the questions. Why would Google give away a campus email and collaboration system (stripped of the advertising which is Google's only real revenue stream) for free? What's the catch? Keltner (as Google execs tend to be) was blunt. People who use their tools tend to use their search engine and, quote, "we're pretty good at monetizing that." And, "we see students as future leaders, if they become comfortable with our tools now, they'll tend to use them later in their lives."

Yes this is insidious seduction, it sure is, but let's consider this cost/benefit balance. What does your university (or school) spend on email? If that email system was free, could you not raise tuition? Could you hire more faculty? Could you put WYNN on more campus computers? But here's the thing, Google will seduce, but they won't bribe. They won't hand a toy to a faculty member at a conference which transforms that prof into "a techie" in the eyes of his or her peers. They won't give out free books either. So their "leverage" in campus decision making is limited. As we may deduce from observing the number of campuses spending their own and student dollars on "clickers" vs. the number cutting costs by adopting Google Apps for Education.

The Universal Design Tech companies? Without the profits from 700% textbook markups, or the alternative revenue stream of Google, they struggle to bribe or seduce. Even when their products are free, they remain of little interest to universities - despite, well, what's the cost/benefit relationship there?

Which brings us back to Michelle Rhee. Who's marketing her, and why?

Rhee is part of a broad push by America's true "old guard" to ensure that education doesn't really change. The same folks at Harvard and Penn who offer our minorities the lowest educational expectations possible through Teach for America and KIPP Academies, are selling you Rhee, and lowered expectations for all schools - except of course, for the schools attended by the children of those elites.

There is a reason the television networks and New York Times and Time-Warner love TFA and Rhee. These organizations are run by people with power, and by people who would rather not share power.

So they have adopted the ultimate in reductionist standards. "If we had even decent education - or even enough teachers of any kind - in most of the places it places its students, then [TFA] would be a step down," a commenter on this blog said yesterday. Right, so here's the standard: Teach for America, or Michelle Rhee's DC school system, is better than not having schools at all.

Rhee's own words: '"People say, 'Well, you know, test scores don't take into account creativity and the love of learning,'" she says with a drippy, grating voice, lowering her eyelids halfway. Then she snaps back to herself. "I'm like, 'You know what? I don't give a crap.' Don't get me wrong. Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don't know how to read, I don't care how creative you are. You're not doing your job."'

No, she doesn't give a crap. She wants her African-American students prepared for the lowest possible jobs on the economic ladder. That way (perhaps, in her unconscious thinking) they will not threaten the success of her small minority group - a group which has found itself accepted by the powers-that-be because it isn't big enough to be threatening.

Of course I have a different view of reading than Rhee, and of language itself. First, I know that there are lots of ways "to read," and second, I know that when children are inspired to learn about things, they tend to want to learn to read (in one form or another). As opposed to the Joel Klein-Michelle Rhee-KIPP Academy-George W. Bush notion that reading is a skill which should be learned outside of the context of interest-based education.

But then, my goal is opportunity, and my belief system - not being market-capitalist in nature - doesn't think an underclass is a good idea (to hold down upward pressure on wages).

Rhee is not important, of course. She's racist in her expectations and racist in her strategies, she's not an educator at all in the real meaning of that term, she talks a great deal but has little actual impact in her job. But Rhee being hailed as the educational messiah is important.

Like those who favor TFA solutions - the Rhee idea is to NOT change US society. Yes, we'll make impoverished minority groups marginally more competent - thus improving profits at the top and reducing the cost of the dole. But no, we will not empower those groups by empowering their children. Teaching them to be creative 'will have to wait' (forever). Teaching them to find their own learning styles - thus accepting cultural change instead of social reproduction - is dangerous (as it always is for those at the top).

We lower expectations. We test meaningless things (Time: "The ability to improve test scores is clearly not the only sign of a good teacher. But it is a relatively objective measure in an industry with precious few. And in schools where kids are struggling to read and subtract, it is a prerequisite for getting anything else done." Really? Anything? You can't teach the physics of a bouncing ball to a non-reader, or the love of literature?). We strip time away from what is precious to children and force them into chanting. We enforce white majority cultural norms and deny identity. We argue that teachers should be paid according to the "short term gain" rules that worked so well for traders at Citigroup and AIG.

And this is all brought to you by the wealthiest people, and the largest old-line corporations in the country. Because, I'll say it again, they have no incentive to allow those below them to succeed.

Follow the money my friends. When information flows freely to as many people as possible, Google makes money. When information is expensive, those who sponsor "clickers" make money. When the kids in Washington, D.C. schools fail, there are fewer challenges to the children of New York Times and Time editors for slots in Ivy League schools. When Washington, D.C. schools focus on "the basics" students from there will not beat out the son of a GE exec for a spot at Carnegie-Mellon.

When you see invented trends, pull back the curtain, see who's pulling the levers. It is important.

- Ira Socol

Coercive Technology

(long and only marginally coherent yet again - don't worry, the next post is better)
the original clicker post, linked badly in the IHE comments, is at "instant anachronism"

Towards the end of the most recent Inside Higher Ed battle over clickers in the classroom a fascinating battle broke out among Southern California academics.

Dr. Frederica Shockley, Professor of Economics at Chico State University, jumped to my baited comment regarding the idea that if clickers increased attendance (through mandatory use), electronic monitoring ankle bracelets might do the same. "I ask multiple-choice questions, but I also ask a lot of numeric questions," she wrote. "If 25% or more do not answer correctly, I go over the material again. I don’t go over as many chapters, but my students seldom ask me to slow down, and students are making more A’s and B’s. The questions and the students’ responses often become the catalyst for interesting class discussions. Clickers are an additional expense for students, but apparently many of my students think that the benefits outweigh the cost. In an end of the semester survey 70% said that they would prefer taking a class using clickers than a class not using clickers. About 30% of my students prefer a class without clickers because they have to attend class in order to get a good grade on their clicker responses. I do believe that California taxpayers who subsidize my students prefer that they attend class, and clickers are far cheaper than ankle bracelets."

Which brought out "LogicGuru" - who seems to be Dr. H.E. Baber of the Department of Philosophy at the University of San Diego.

Dr. Baber acknowledges teaching at "a private college" (though that hardly suggests that it is unsubsidized by the government - private colleges in the US benefit from, among other things, not paying taxes, having their tuition paid through subsidized federal loans, and copious research grants), and then goes on to say, "If they want to come to class and participate to get their money’s worth that’s their business. If they want to waste their money and get lousy grades, that’s their decision. I don’t take the roll, I don’t use clickers and I have no interest in locking on ankle bracelets: I’m a professor not a cop.

"We provide a resource—classroom teaching, individual help, advising, a good academic library, technology and all the facilities they need to learn and do well. If students are motivated, I’ll give them everything they want—I’ll talk to them, work with them as long as they want, see them on weekends, correspond with them by email, and do everything I can do to help them achieve their goals. If they’re not motivated, I will not bully them, impose attendance requirements on them, or make any attempt to motivate them. They’re adults and it’s their decision."

Dr. Shockley fires back: "I agree with Professor LogicGuru at Private College when he or she says that he or she is not obligated to taxpayers. However, I am in a different situation, and I believe my expectation that students attend class is entirely reasonable. If you think requiring clickers is equivalent to “browbeating” my students, how do you explain the fact that 70% of them would prefer to take another class with clickers than without? Are 70% of my students masochistic?"

And Dr. Baber answers: "Masochism isn’t the issue, Shockley. At least 70% of my students would prefer not to got to college at all if they could get well-paying middle class jobs without it. That’s not my business. I don’t care what my student’s want or what makes them feel good. They have a requirement to meet which, I believe, is legitimate. If they want their working papers they’ve got to satisfy that requirement. I’ll do everything I can to help them but I will not do anything to motivate them. I do my job and they do theirs. They’re grown-ups and make choices."

Then, Dr. Ellis Godard, a Sociology Professor at CSUN (California State University – Northridge) jumps in: "I pity the students of LogicGuru, who doesn’t care what they want and “will not do anything to motivate them". Like it or not, teaching is a performance; if you weed out all that’s entertaining and motivating, you might be left with some incredibly dry (dare I say, boring) presentations. You can discount their reactions as not your business — but if your business is teaching, you might consider whether they’d learn more, more readily, and more permanently if they were motivated. And if you think all of the motivation is to come from the material itself, regardless of performance elements, that alone may explain why 70% of your students don’t want to come. I probably wouldn’t either."

I was entertained by this explosion among academics willing to identify themselves (rare in this setting), but I thought it was also remarkably revealing. And when I read back through the debate, the revelations came in bunches.

Obviously, Dr. Shockley sees herself as an arm of the state. It is her job to build a compliant workforce. That is why the state pays her. That is her job. Thus, when she uses technology she will do so to reinforce the values the state determines are important - attendance, punctuality, responding when asked to respond.

Dr. Baber sees his job differently because he sees a different master. He is there to offer a service to the students. It is a simple service - sort of a fraternity initiation. Do what I ask and you get the credential you need. He suggests, I think accurately, that there is little connection between this initiation process and the jobs his students seek. And thus he makes the decision that he will help if he can, but he will not coerce. When he uses technology it will be as one more way for students to access the things they will choose to access.

Dr. Godard has yet another vision of the faculty's function in the world. He is there to persuade, to convince, to evangelize. His purpose is more deeply 'religious,' he is paid to convert. When he uses technology he will do it to inspire, to entertain, to seize attention - in exactly the same way that medieval Catholics used the technology of the great cathedrals.

So, in the clicker controversy, two of these professors are on one side but for differing reasons. One is on the other. And while, if I peruse the three professors websites, I will likely find that I am more likely to politically agree with Dr. Godard and even Dr. Shockley before I'd fall in line with Dr. Baber, in the end I have to agree with Dr. Baber's thoughts here. Not because I like his attitude toward his job, but because he is the only one not being actively coercive.

There are lots of ways to use contemporary technologies. We can inform, communicate, engage, break though barriers - and we can also do other things. I watched a BBC News story this week which documented how local councils in the United Kingdom seem to be watching almost every bit of human behavior with their CCTV cameras. George W. Bush feels perfectly within his rights to open your mail without a search warrant. Employers spy on employees. Parents spy on kids. Spouses spy on spouses. Companies tempt you to do stupid things with flashing links on their websites. As Michael Bugeja tries to say - every technology has its purposes, good and bad.

So let me throw out two anecdotes:

(1) If you're a long time reader you know I spent a chunk of my life in police work. After I quit and ended up in small Midwestern American town, I noticed something. Each morning I'd drive past the town's school. And at least three mornings a week a cop would be hidden somewhere along this stretch of road - the only route out of the town. He'd be in a driveway behind large shrubs. He'd be in an abandoned gas station hidden by the old pumps. He'd be on the grass of a park between two large trees. In each case his radar would be on.

Eventually I asked the town's police chief (he and I coached sports on adjoining fields), "Wouldn't it be a better school zone speed control if the guy was just parked in front of the school as obviously as possible?" "Well, probably," he admitted, "but I guess he'd rather catch people." I laughed. I think I said something about how most police agencies embraced a slogan something like "to serve and protect," and very few painted "to enforce and imprison" on the sides of their vehicles - though the reality often seemed different.

So there is guidance: "I'm sitting here in my police car to remind you that there are children crossing the street and you should drive slowly and carefully." And there is coercion: "I am going to force you comply be threatening you with randomly applied harm."

We could make classes more engaging and involving. We could make the education either more apparently relevant or more valuable in its own right. Or we can force you into compliance with digital monitoring.

(2) I sat near the departure gate in O'Hare's International Terminal waiting for the 7:00 pm overnight to Dublin and laughing with a friend about security screening. We'd just watched the intense examination of the shoes of a six-month-old child. A TSA worker sat nearby. "You wouldn't believe," she interrupted us to say, "what people hide in their babies' stuff." "Bombs?" I asked. "Weapons?" "No," she said, "but all kinds of things, like bigger bottles of shampoo or sunscreen."

Yes, that is why the US government spends billions on airport security. That is why travellers are routinely inconvenienced and harassed. We must prevent excessive amounts of sunscreen from being carried onto our planes. I could have told the TSA worker that I bet that if we took a vote in this terminal right now, 95% would rather save the airport fees which pay for security, and would rather get through security faster and with less hassle, even if that meant contraband sunscreen on board. Honestly, 95% would probably feel the same way even it that meant contraband cocaine on board. Because the only reason we put up with this nonsense is that we do not want to get killed.

All the rest is "mission creep." We're protecting you, and while we're protecting you we will also pursue a vast assortment of our own agendas. This is the idea that simply because we can do something, we should. We can watch for neighborhood crime, but we'll also check out who might be sunbathing topless. We can look for terrorist chatter, but we'll also see who might be buying things and avoiding sales tax or VAT. We can protect our children on their way to school, but we'll also notice who is bringing their child across school district or LEA boundaries.

We can filter the internet, so we should. We can monitor or teenager's whereabouts, so we should. We can drive attendance with clickers, so we should. We can compel some kind of cursory night-before-class reading with clicker quizzes, so we should.

I think coercive technology design is a problem in a number of ways.

• When we filter the internet we stop teaching responsibility, respect, discretion, and appropriate use.
• When we force students to attend anonymous lectures through clicker-use grading, we eliminate any incentive for the instructor to actually make the course worth attending, and any incentive for the student to do any more than show up.
• When we monitor our adolescents continually we actually prevent their ability to develop judgment.
  
• When we overstep our security mandates we drive activity deeply underground and push those activities further from social controls (this is true when we stop teens from drinking on a street corner - wouldn't we rather have them there then driving out into the woods where no one can see? and it is true of internet limitations in libraries - in the town I now live dozens of teens are on-line in any coffee shop but almost none in the public library: the library filters access to many innocuous sites and will not let anyone under 18 use the wireless system)
• When we use our technology principally as an entertainment system (even a really bad entertainment system like PowerPoint), we contribute to the notion of learning as a passive activity.
• When we insist on a single technological solution independent of student need and comfort, we are simply substituting one form of tyranny for another. If the printed book caused problems for a 1/3 of the population, requiring that everything always be in digital form will also likely cause problems for 1/3 of the population (a different third, of course).
  

Technology can help transform education. I absolutely believe that. But in order to transform education technology must be democratically employed. It must open access, add choices, increase opportunities, improve flexibility. If it does not do that, if it is employed in pursuit of 'efficiency' and coercion, it will instead lock all of our current failures in place.

The comments on the Inside Higher Ed article demonstrate this pattern. One side doubts the value of the lecture course as a pedagogical system, and the other side insists that the clicker makes the lecture course just-enough-better to justify its continued existence. The clicker enforces (a) attendance, (b) reading, (c) response. It makes lectures "measurably" more palatable. Reading these you'd have to wonder exactly how terrible these courses were before being "improved" by the clicker. No, you won't, we've all sat through them. We know.

Back when I first took on this clicker issue, I quoted a friend, "We had a demo of our clicker system at the [institution where he works], and it was magical how people felt empowered by having any input in a classroom at all. It was demoed with a class full of teachers, and they were so energized it was sad to see, because it shows how used they are to being passive vessels in learning. It is clearly a transitional technology, and a more politic guy would have found a way to say that, rather than jumping in their face. But that's why America needs you."

I'm not sure that America needs me, but I do think that America does need to think about how technology can change education, and not how technology can prevent education from changing.

- Ira Socol

Worth reading: Education in Finland (relating to the link above on internet filtering). Goldfish on Privilege - One and Two. Patricia Donaghy on PDF Xchange.

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