EduGuru

We’re taking our school voucher to Korea!

U.S. students rank below 14 other nations? True. However, do you really believe that? Even in the presidential debate, the moderator quoted the miserable ranking of U.S. students among all nations of the world. We spend more and achieve less.

Is the comparison fair?  Our public schools include everyone—almost.  We test them all—thanks, NCLB.  We even graduate 80% of them—including the special education students with modifications.  Our English language learners have to be tested in English—do other countries test only in their official language?  Our schools teach their own state’s standards—not some international panel’s opinion of what’s important globally.  Our school day is more reasonable—shorter.  We rely inordinately upon homework—actually less than other countries.  We educate the illegal immigrants—shouldn’t their scores be assigned to their home countries?  We take the summer off so kids can help their parents back on the farm—or travel to those other countries.  We blame ourselves for global warming and teach green—well, they blame us too.  Our course catalogues list more elective courses than solids—does anyone still use that term?  The Pope should take responsibility for the Catholic schools.  Charter schools aren’t doing well enough.  College engineering schools should give preference to Americans.  Did you see the last National Spelling Bee?—our students are from those other countries.

If we had universal vouchers, would parents send their kids to other countries? We can make too many excuses, but if you believe in face validity, those rankings just don’t add up to us.  Are our U.S. members on that panel really representing us well? 

The EduGuru speaks:  How in the world can they determine what someone in Beijing, Beruit, and Baytown should know and measure it fairly?  Is too much faith being placed in those tests and the standardization of them?  The U.S. doesn’t have to be first, but are those other countries really that good?

The Cat in the Hat on ACT and SAT.

With all the substance of Dr. Seuss, the critics of the ACT and SAT are out in force. If the Cat in the Hat wanted to end the dominance and influence of the SAT and ACT, what would he do? First, he wouldn’t approach the problem with logic and research. After all, there was precious little definitive research that got those tests to their current influence levels. He’d run right through the College Board and ACT corporate offices challenging everything they do. He’d tear through the college admissions offices exposing the inertia that makes them fearful of change. Then he’d be gone. The Cat in the Hat is not famous for solutions. He’s admired for chaos. Chaos creates reform. As of now the colleges are more comfortable with the SAT and ACT than with any of the more subjective, unstandardized alternatives being bandied about. The suggestion that a new assessment, more aligned with what college students need to know, just doesn’t have much traction in a tug of war with inertia. Without chaos in the admissions system, why would colleges initiate a major shift? As long as the ACT and SAT assessments sell, why would their owners butcher a cash cow?

The EduGuru speaks: The Cat in the Hat has told me personally that his 600 on the SAT and 12 on the ACT are what are keeping him out of college. He believes colleges should select students based upon how much fun they are and whether or not they clean up after themselves.

Project Halloween.

Project Halloween, teaching school kids to enjoy fright, is haunted. What else could explain being plagued by so many problems? Whatever possessed us in the first place? I would have spoken up sooner, but I was scared speechless.

Monsters are everywhere, and no coordination or planning is evident from the Project Mangler. All the Project Mangler seems to do is booby trap the path with GANTT Shards.

The scariest monster of them all is the Scope Creep. The Scope Creep is making giant problems out of the simplest tasks. The Scope Creep was unleashed by his evil master the Ogre Achiever. Everyone is being pushed over the edge by the Ogre Achiever. Gigantic fights have broken out between the Ogre Achiever and her nemesis, the Creature of Habit. Most of the battles center around the transition to individual student records.

The Creature of Habit is staunchly supported by his side kick, the Devil’s Aggregate, who condemns anyone trying to collect individual records over the Internet. I must admit that no one wants to be caught by the FERPA Cop, who disguises herself with a small cell mask.

The Data Freak has all the files held hostage. He’s threatening to parse them into little pieces until even their own parent files would not recognize them. As of now, no files can be trusted because viruses have caused Authoritative Data Sores. Any original documentation has been lost in the Relational Data Maze.

Not everyone is dumb and ugly. There’s the Data Model, who can be both logical and physical. Just watch out for her cat—Fuzzy Logic, the only cat that needs a network because she can’t LAN on her own feet.

The project’s Debugger is overworked. Any code written is crawling with bugs. Just to look at the code makes you want to ERP. We applied RAID everywhere, but still lost our data.

The portal is working. Microsoft assures us that ScarePoint is not causing users to stay away. But they say the Firewall is intimidating. With all the costumes, Identity Management is impossible.

The only actionable reports turned out to be gunfire that sent everyone running in a wild game of Cache me if you can.

We tried to teach the students tennis. Those cheaters used a Proxy Server. A wrestling match broke out between the Thin Client and the Fat Client. Actually, that was very entertaining. Of course the Thin Client was the first to be downloaded. The Fat Client had to be burned onto a CD. Oh that
MegaHurts. Everyone thought that was over kill.

We narrowly escaped a ridiculous idea by the Single-Minded Manager to ship the entire project to Boston and turn it into an Internet dating service to make better use of our Dater Warehouse. At least we have Single Sign-On.

The first application developed was stolen by the Software Pirate. Then he sold it back to us and added on a brutal maintenance fee. We had to pay it because once those software pirates get their hooks into you, you can’t get rid of them. Sue them, but that COTS both ways.

No one likes our data. We have BOOlean data.

No one trusts using the Internet because they are afraid of the evil Web Master. The Web Master constantly feeds the Resource Goblin who gobbles up all available resources. The Web Master wasted all of the project’s money developing a frightening Ghouly Interface to replace the Gooey mess that users got stuck in and couldn’t exit.

Then the Resource Goblin suggested a Halloween carnival fund raiser where kids could bob for Apples. At the carnival, a kid let some data from an Apple RAM down her throat. We administered CPU and the unit was upgraded. As in all these projects, getting data in is easier than getting data back out.

Attempts to assign student identifiers have been accompanied by shots being fired. This is nothing more than just sibling riflery among the directional witches.

The Wicked Witch of the East accused the Good Witch of the North of being annual retentive because she wants to keep longitudinal information in addition to tombstone information. No one knows what’s going on because of the self-annointed rumor control witch, the Directionally Impaired Witch of the NEWS. She rides her broom in all directions at once, and periodically flies off the handle trying to sweep problems under the proverbial data table.

Since NCLB, all the witches have been driven insane trying to follow the Spirit of the Law. The President cast Spellings upon every child in the hopes they would learn how to read the handwriting on the wall. USED’s guidance has been mostly cryptic messages about grave consequences.

Will the next President help us? OhhhhhhhhhhhhhBama freightens us with universal health scare. MccccccccccccccCain won’t torture our enemies, but is imPalin us. The project didn’t seem to have a ghost of a chance of being executed, and heads are expected to roll. Will this project be successful? Not bloody likely!

Then, out of the darkness, came this extraordinary insight, “Why not use ESP to look into the future for a solution?” Incredibly, ESP saved Halloween for the kids by developing a Killer App. Of course, ESP also
suggested that Halloween is no longer a name that is acceptable to all sides in today’s politically correct world, so the project activities will be held in the “middle of the road” downtown and be called the Main Treat Festival.

There it is again. We hear groaning and moaning every time we talk about this project. The noose has been removed from around the project’s neck—No Noose is Good News!

The EduGuru speaks: Don’t turn to Wickedpedia for answers to this one. Oh, that leads us into the next depressing holiday crisis—Thanksgrimming. Then Christmess. Then Hauntukkah. Then New Jeers. Stop, please stop—you’re killing me!

Click below to find the print-ready text of the EduGuru's autumnal Insight on project management, data models, the U.S. economy, and presidential politics.  Warning:  This document is ripe with ghost puns, real groaners.

Download project_halloween.pdf

$700 Billion Bailout for Education.

A little perspective is appropriate for the $700,000,000,000 bailout of Wall Street.  That’s enough money to do any one of the following:

• Spend $14,000 on every public school student in the country.
  
• Pay every teacher over $200,000.
• Invest $14,000,000 in each low-performing school.
• Reduce the pupil-teacher ratio to 5 to 1 nationwide.

The EduGuru speaks:  But Congress insists we will get a return on our money by investing in Wall Street.  Ummm. Wouldn’t we get a better return by investing in our kids?

The $1 Million Question: Are you smarter than Kathy Cox?

Kathy Cox, State Superintendent of Education, Georgia, is the first contestant to win the top prize on “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?”  Thanks to her familiarity with Queen Victoria and General Cornwallis, Kathy aced the final two questions.  We’d like to see Victoria on “The Nanny,” and the General on “The Biggest Loser” (Yorktown).  Kathy, a history major, drew two world history categories when the stakes were the biggest.  She never needed her “Cheats” from the actual fifth graders.

Congratulations Kathy, you were not only entertaining, but the $1 million goes to schools in Georgia.  Think your Legislature was paying attention?  Maybe they should get you on “Deal or No Deal.”  Your admonition to all students at the end of the show to stay in school was great. 

Wonder if Michael Phelps would have gotten Olympic swimming questions.

1^st Grade Math: How long is the 400 meter freestyle relay?

Phelps: 3 minutes, 8.24 seconds

2^nd Grade History: Who won 7 Olympic Gold Medals in one year?

Phelps:  Me

3^rd Grade History: Who won 8 gold medals in one year?

Phelps:  Me too

4^th Grade Science: What’s the temperature of the pool water in Beijing?

Phelps: Cool, like when I win by a touch

5^th Grade American Culture: How many viewers saw you on Saturday Night Live?

Phelps: Don’t know.  I was watching Kathy Cox win $1 million.

The EduGuru speaks:  Whew!  So glad an educator not an athlete was the first to be smarter than a fifth grader.

Leveraging Compliance Data for Instructional Improvement.

Not buying it?  Compliance data are those collected and reported to satisfy audit and accountability requirements, e.g., reporting attendance for state funding, females in organized sports for Title IX, minorities in AP classes for the Office for Civil Rights, proficient students in math for NCLB, on and on.  These data don’t inform instruction for teachers when they are reported months later in aggregate form.  In fact, teachers can look out over their classroom and know these statistics on a moment-to-moment basis. 

Then why do we hear people from the U.S. Department of Education to every state education agency trying to tie their data to daily classroom instructional processes?

The EduGuru speaks:  ROI.  The policy wonks desperately want their efforts to help the millions of students and thousands of teachers directly rather than indirectly.  The Eduguru praises them for this vision.  However, that’s not your job. 

The data that inform the work of state and federal government (statistics to calculate funding formulas and accredit schools) are not what teachers use on a daily basis (personal information about individual students and their immediate instructional needs).   

…and that’s OK.

The job of the state and federal bureaucrats is to get out of the way of the schools and districts and let them achieve data-driven decision making.  That can be done by making the local to state and state to federal reporting processes as efficient and unobtrusive as possible.  One aspect of that is to follow consistent data standards that allow the schools and districts to keep “one set of data books.”  Collecting, storing, and reporting data consistently across all systems is the key.

ETL—“All your dreams will come true.” –Vote for Pedro!*

To understand ETL, one must master the arena of maps.  Maps show the way to transform codes or values in one format (source) into the desired codes or values of another (destination).  Sometimes you’ll hear crosswalks rather than maps—same thing.  Sometimes you’ll hear of transformation rules or business rules—gets complicated here.  The business rules describe exactly how a value in one format must be transformed.  A simple map or crosswalk might take a code of “1” and make it an “a.”  A business rule might demand that “1” become “a” when referring to a first grader, but “b” when referring to a second grader, but still “a” if the second grader was socially promoted, however, “b” if the social promotion occurred in kindergarten.

One must not underestimate the importance or complexity of these ETL processes.  A special education December child count data collection from districts to the state education agency might require 50 or more business rules.

The EduGuru speaks:  Remember when the ugly duckling transformed into the beautiful swan?  Our data transform from whatever they need to be in the school or district database to the “beautiful,” comparable data at the state level when they pass all the business rules.  Be clear.  This is not a fairy tale.  This is a dream come true.

*from the movie Napoleon Dynamite

ETL—Cheese? Jalepenos? Mayo? $6.45.

A previous blog warned you about ETL. This one gives some answers.  Getting data from where they live to where they can be used is possible. Interoperable is the term for information systems that exchange data efficiently.

Standards—when every information system, every software application, every reporting tool uses the same standards for their data, then ETL can be efficient. Standards cover formats, definitions, codes, business rules, and processes. Comma separated values, XML, SIF, SPEEDE, PESC HS, ODBC, your state’s data submission specifications are all standards.

Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) is an example of a standard that allows software applications to remain proprietary in their internal design but exchange their data efficiently with each other.

National Transcript Center is an example of an application that accepts data in various formats and transforms them into any of a number of other formats. The users pick the one standard they want to follow, and what they send is translated into what the receiver wants. Everything sent to them is translated into their one selected format.

The EduGuru speaks:  Toppings—the ETL of the fast food industry. Been to the fast food shop where the person behind the counter only speaks English when it comes to menu items? A conversation about the weather, politics, or sports is out of the question, but the finite vocabulary words of the hamburger, sandwich, pizza, or burrito allow the customer and the employee to conduct business within the well-defined scope of “your way.” To be fair, the vocabulary also includes prices, tendered amounts, and change. More complicated directions such as where the napkins reside or can I have another (fill in the blank) are communicated with pointing and head nods. Don’t try to ask for directions to your next destination.  Those words are not part of the interoperability standard of the fast food industry.

The Aura of COTS.

Commercial Off The Shelf Solution—the holy grail of software applications.  Buy it; install it; use it.  What could be simpler? Reality is that when an organization buys a COTS, they typically get (and pay for) features they won’t use and miss out on features they really wanted. COTS has an “aura.”  Look up the word “aura” and find, “a characteristic or distinctive impression created by somebody or something.” 

What the COTS sellers fear is that a buyer would discover all the related efforts and costs required to make the COTS work, i.e., ETL, retrofitting the COTS definitions back into other existing applications, changing the vernacular of the organization to that of the COTS, finding a DBA that knows the COTS, making the COTS interoperable with current and future applications, paying the annual license fees, etc.   

That said, the vendor of a COTS may offer some configuration or even customization services that make the solution more acceptable.  In that case, the C becomes Customized Off The Shelf Solution.  Keeping aligned with the application’s enhancements then becomes an additional challenge.

Knowing what you want and recognizing all the costs before choosing a COTS is advisable. 

The EduGuru speaks: Interesting how a cot is the least desirable place to sleep, but is accepted by many who really want a Sleep Number Bed.

ETL—Are your data missing the bus?

Learn this information systems term!  Extract (get the data out of one place), Transform (change them from their original format into another one), and Load (put them into another place).  ETL is the toughest process for getting data in front of a teacher, administrator, parent, or other audience.  Schools, districts, and states spend millions of dollars to buy the best reporting software tools, but fail to influence instruction, school management, or decision making because the process of getting the right data, in the right place, in the right format, at the right time is so difficult.

Software vendors can purposely ignore or under estimate this effort because if their customers knew how hard ETL is, they might not spend millions on software that won’t have necessary data in it.  Budgets can dangerously under provide the dollars needed.  Project plans can miss targets because of the time required. 

ETL problems are at the top of the list of why information systems fail to satisfy their users. 

The EduGuru speaks:  Sounds like the challenge parents have to get their kids out of bed, dressed, and onto the school bus on time.  No learning takes place if the kids miss the bus.  No data-driven decision making takes place if the data miss the bus.