President Obama announces a proposed $1.3 billion investment in Race to the Top, a program to encourage innovation and excellence in education through competitive grants, at an event at Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, VA. January 19, 2010.
schools
How to make the case for education reform | VISION TALKS
Education reform is one of America’s most pivotal topics. But after 30 years of school reform with mixed results, are we lacking ideas? Or do we lack ways to effectively communicate those ideas? Arthur Brooks shows you the secrets to talking about your plans to make America’s schools a better place.
Let us know what you thought of the talk by taking this survey—we’ll send you a free e-book of our latest work on education as a thank you! http://www.thepursuitofhappiness.com/vision-talks-survey-2/
Subscribe for more Vision Talks:
https://www.youtube.com/user/AEIVideos?sub_confirmation=1
Watch other videos about education:
More from Arthur Brooks:
Partial transcript:
What I’m going to tell you in the next 15 minutes is how each of you can be as skilled as the composer of that piece of music that we’re listening to right now.
Now, what is that music? That’s the second Brandenburg concerto in F major by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was written in about the year 1710, when Bach was about 25 years old. It was written for the Margrave of Brandenburg, a man by the name of Christian Ludwig. Christian Ludwig was a prince from the House of Prussia. This was written for him by Bach, and was one of a number of compositions that you’re probably familiar with. If you like classical music at all, you know that piece. You know Johann Sebastian Bach.
What you don’t know is how incredibly productive Bach was as a composer. That’s one of more than 1,000 pieces written by Bach – incredibly productive. The pieces fell off his pen – cantatas, orchestral suites, chamber music, keyboard pieces. It’s awe inspiring what he was able to do. He also, by the way, during his productive life had 20 children. That’s productive. (Laughter.)
Now, he was dedicated to more than just his compositions. He was dedicated to his family, and you’d think he would be given all these children that he had. And many of his children grew up to be more famous composers in his time than he was. Probably principally famous at his time was Johann Christian Bach, one of his older children, who went to become one of Mozart’s early teachers, as a matter of fact.
Bach wasn’t that famous as a composer during his lifetime. He was pretty well known as a teacher. He only became sort of the rock star of classical music 100 years after his death. He died in 1750. In 1850, Felix Mendelssohn, a later composer, discovered his manuscripts and showed his friend and said, you have to hear this. This stuff is really great. During this time, he was known as a good teacher and a good father.
Now, you might be asking yourself, why do I know so much about Bach and or maybe you’re asking yourself why the heck are you talking about Bach? Well, I’ll tell you.
This is not my first career. I didn’t start out as a think tank president. It’s not even my second career. Before this, I was a college professor, but I started out my career spending 12 years as a professional French horn player. I made my living playing chamber music that I wound up in the city orchestra of Barcelona for a number of seasons.
And when I was in the Barcelona symphony, I listened to a lot to Bach. I played a lot of Bach. Bach is my favorite composer. I took great inspiration even on my worst days from listening to the great music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
And I want to tell you something about Bach that had a particular impression on me that sort of changed my life. See, I was reading a book about Bach in the days that I was in the orchestra, and, you know, he was recording some of his thoughts for posterity to a biographer. And the biographer asked him a very simple question at one point. He said, why do you write music? It’s an odd question. It’s not how do you write music or where do you get your inspiration. Why do you write music? Maybe somebody has asked you that question. Probably not. Why do you what you do. But that was the question posed to Bach.
And here was his answer. Actually, let me tell you the answer you’d expect. You’d expect a 30-minute boring exegesis about composition from a professional composer or a glib materialistic response like, it’s a living, right? That’s what people say. That’s not what Bach said. Here’s what he said, quote: “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” That is his answer.
Now, that had a huge impression on me. Why? I asked myself, what would my answer be? What do you play the French horn? Why are you a college professor? Why are you a think tank president? What would your answer be to that question?
How to make the case for education reform
Race for Education Reform
Obama invites schools to compete for billions of dollars to improve classrooms. For more, click here: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=8167411&page=1
Bill Gates’ Neoliberal Education Reforms DON’T WORK
Bill Gates is a very, VERY smart man. But one multi-year endeavor by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve education has made no impact. Sam Seder and the Majority Report crew discuss this.
We need your help to keep providing free videos! Support the Majority Report’s video content by going to http://www.Patreon.com/MajorityReport
Watch the Majority Report live M–F at 12 p.m. EST at youtube.com/samseder or listen via daily podcast at http://Majority.FM
Download our FREE app: http://majorityapp.com
SUPPORT the show by becoming a member: http://jointhemajorityreport.com
LIKE us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/MajorityReport
FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MajorityFM
SUBSCRIBE to us on YouTube: http://youtube.com/SamSeder
More: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2242.html
—The Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative, designed and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was a multiyear effort to dramatically improve student outcomes by increasing students’ access to effective teaching. Participating sites adopted measures of teaching effectiveness (TE) that included both a teacher’s contribution to growth in student achievement and his or her teaching practices assessed with a structured observation rubric. The TE measures were to be used to improve staffing actions, identify teaching weaknesses and overcome them through effectiveness-linked professional development (PD), and employ compensation and career ladders (CLs) as incentives to retain the most-effective teachers and have them support the growth of other teachers. The developers believed that these mechanisms would lead to more-effective teaching, greater access to effective teaching for low-income minority (LIM) students, and greatly improved academic outcomes.
Beginning in 2009–2010, three school districts — Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) in Florida; Memphis City Schools (MCS) in Tennessee (which merged with Shelby County Schools, or SCS, during the initiative); and Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) in Pennsylvania — and four charter management organizations (CMOs) — Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, and Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC) Schools — participated in the Intensive Partnerships initiative. RAND and the American Institutes for Research conducted a six-year evaluation of the initiative, documenting the policies and practices each site enacted and their effects on student outcomes. This is the final evaluation report.—
Ghana free education reforms prompt waiting lists, social problems
Improvements to Ghana’s public high school system have led to declining enrolments, and closures, of many private schools.
At the same time, many students are spending months waiting to secure a free high school place.
Critics say the wait is causing a rise in social problems, as young people with too much spare time are turning to drugs and prostitution.
Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris reports from Odupong, outside Ghana’s capital Accra.
– Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe
– Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish
– Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera
– Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/
#AlJazeeraEnglish #Ghana
Has education reform gone wrong? | VISION TALKS
Has education reform gone wrong? What problems are American educators actually trying to solve? Should our focus be on securing our economic future, or on securing the future of our nation’s children? In this Vision Talk, Chancellor of DC Public Schools Kaya Henderson spells out her vision for education and our young people.
Let us know what you thought of the talk by taking this survey—we’ll send you a free e-book of our latest work on education as a thank you!
http://www.thepursuitofhappiness.com/vision-talks-survey-2/
Subscribe for more Vision Talks:
https://www.youtube.com/user/AEIVideos?sub_confirmation=1
Watch more Vision Talks:
Watch other videos about education:
Partial transcript:
My name is Kaya Henderson and I am chancellor of DC Public Schools. But before I was chancellor of DC Public Schools, I am mom to Marcus, who is 9, and Robert Jr., who is 18. But before I was mom to them, I was Kaya Henderson, a little girl who got a great public education and is living the American dream.
Yeah, I got a great house, drive my own car. I have a good job. I don’t borrow money from my parents every month to pay my bills. (Inaudible) – exactly what a good public education is supposed to do for you. In fact, my family started out in the projects of Mount Vernon, New York. My family lived in the projects for 47 years. And we moved solidly out of the lower income rung into the middle class. My mother was the first person in our family to go to a college, the first person in our family to buy a home, and the first person in our family to propel the second generation, me, to the kind of middle class existence that I think every parent hopes for their kid in America. I am living the American dream.
And so my vision for education is totally fueled by my individual experience, by my experience as Kaya the mom and then as my experience as Kaya Henderson, chancellor of DC Public Schools. What’s my vision? My vision is that the same public educational system that was able to do it for my mother, that was able to do it for me and to propel me to one of the best universities in this country, Georgetown University – (inaudible) – and that I have that count on that education system to do it for Marcus and to do it for Robert. And if it can do it for my mom and for me and for Marcus and for Robert, then it can do it for every kid in Washington, DC, public schools. That’s my vision.
My vision is not one where my children only know how to read and do math. My vision is one where my children and every child in the city of Washington actually know how to read and do math. They can master science and social studies. They have technological facility. They can speak a foreign language, at least one, right? They can master an instrument. They play a sport. And they might do a few other things that I haven’t thought about because that’s what a great public education provides.
My vision for education is that we can do that for every single one of our young people, whether they come from a middle class background or whether they come from an impoverished background. My vision for education is we can do whether they are general education students or whether they come to us with special needs. My vision for education is that we can accomplish that, whether they speak English as their first language or English as their second or third language.
Somehow or another, I think we’ve gotten away from the belief that we can do that for every student in Washington, DC, and in America. In fact, I think education reform, whatever that means, has gone wrong. We don’t know what problem we’re actually trying to solve. We’re trying to increase test scores or we’re trying to outcompete the Finns or we’re trying to make sure – to secure our economic future. But Kaya the mom doesn’t really care about our economic future. Kaya the mom cares about whether or not Robert and Marcus are going to come home after college and live with me. (Laughter.) Kaya the mom wants to know that when they leave DCPS, they are leaving 41-1013 place, too, permanently. (Laughter.) Kaya the mom wants to know that when my children leave, they can be and do anything that they want to do.
I don’t know what my children’s test scores are. I don’t care. What do people say when their children don’t score well on tests? Oh, my kids just don’t test well. Do we think they’re not smart? No. So why are we putting all of our emphasis around tests? In fact, we care about way more than tests. We care about whether they can do a number of things. And in fact, we are getting this all wrong because we’re concentrating on the wrong things.
Has education reform gone wrong?