The Two Million Minutes Blog

A Message From An Indian America Regarding Two Million Minutes

Dear Bob,

I am a Stanford Business School alum and first heard about your film through the school.  I want to thank you for your important work with 2MM. I myself am an Indian American so I have a unique perspective on this issue.

I grew up in the a Los Angeles suburb called Cerritos.  My high school didn't have a gym, auditorium, lockers, cafeteria or science labs when I first started.  But what it did have was lots of immigrant parents from India, China, and Korea.  They set expectations high and gave us all the support we needed.  The result was a school which finished first in the state academically, despite having no facilities.  It was a subject of a book called "School of Dreams" - check it out if you can.  My experience there proved to me that education is not about funding, as the national dialogue would have you believe.  Rather, it is about values and desire as you so rightly point out.

Great job bringing this issue to our attention.  I hope the dialogue heads in the right direction.  And if you happen to be in SF, please drop me a line.  I would love to grab a cup of coffee with you.

Warm Regards,

Arun

Renaissance Student - Vicky, Age 9 - Reading Spanish in addition to learning Chinese and English

Renaissance School Student - Eleana, Age 5 - Reads Mandarin

Renaissance School Student - Sarah Kate, Age 7 - Reads Mandarin

A typical 7 year old at Panama City Renaissance Elementary School.

Renaissance School Panama City - What President Obama Means - "America’s schools must be incubators of innovation and success."

From White House Press Site

"Driving Innovation and Expecting Excellence
America’s schools must be incubators of innovation and success. Where charter schools are successful, states should be challenged to lift arbitrary caps and make use of successful lessons to drive reform throughout other schools."

[NOTE OF IRONY - Illinois is one of 26 States with an arbitrary cap on Charter Schools and Chicago, where Education Secretary Duncan was Superintendent, has reached its Charter cap and thousands of low income Black and Hispanic kids are condemned to failing Chicago Public Schools. But I digress...]

President Obama is correct - there is a remarkable amount of innovation and success taking place in American education - most of it outside of the public school system.

Charters and private schools are the pioneers, typically driven by parents who want their children to have a 21st century education and quickly realize it can't be found in public schools.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of visiting one of those tiny oases of innovation - the Panama City Renaissance School a K-5 grade school in Panama City, FL. Founded by Juliann Talkington and her husband, the school's curriculum draws from the best curricula around the world, including China, Singapore and South America.

Juliann has a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and graduate degrees from Stanford, Columbia and the University of London. She has been an entrepreneur her whole career. And with a young daughter who she wants to be educated to 21st century standards, Juliann is now an educational entrepreneur by necessity.

Like most of the most innovative Charters and private schools, Juliann puts her limited capital into hiring great teachers, not into physical facilities. Renaissance School leases space from a church in a very modest neighborhood.

 

But the education being delivered inside these humble walls is anything but modest - children at 5, 6 and 7 learning at the highest levels globally. Here's a look at the curriculum:

MATH
K – 5th -- Singapore Math1A – 6A (all Textbooks, Workbooks, Extra Practice books, Intensive Practice books, Challenging Word Problem books)

SCIENCE
K – 2nd - Over 50 topics including creativity, atoms, periodic table, internal organs, how car brakes work, gravity, how a pump works, etc.
Grade 3 – Grade 5 Real Science for Kids - Chemistry, Biology, Physics plus additional topics (including liquid density, measuring tools, etc.)

CREATIVITY
Curriculum inspired by Stanford ME creativity courses and developed at Renaissance

ENGLISH (reading, writing, spelling, vocabulary building)
K – 1st -- Saxon Phonics and Spelling 1 and 2 (including all handwriting) and Grammar Practice
2nd – 5th — Modified Sonlight English 3 – 6 including grammar, Wordly Wise 3000, Spelling Power, Real Science For Kids Connections to Language

HISTORY
1st - All US Presidents and other basic facts about US
2nd - 5th — Modified Sonlight History 3 – 6 (US history, Eastern Hemisphere, etc.)

GEOGRAPHY
1st - 5th  All countries of the world, all continents, all oceans.  Basic facts.

MANDARIN CHINESE  (students taught to read, speak and write)
K – 5 Stanford Chinese School Curriculum + supplemental material

SPANISH (students taught to read, speak and write)
1st -  Sube + supplemental material
2nd- 5th Mexican Government Spanish Curriculum G1 – G4 + supplemental material

Not something one sees everyday in U.S. education - science taught in elementary school in both  English and Mandarin:

Implausible Accountability and Education Reform

Since the Kennedy Administration, President's have used "plausible deniability" to accomplish tasks they believed needed to be done, but for which they wanted no blame.

President Obama has created a new presidential expression - "implausible accountability" to NOT accomplish tasks he believes need to be done, but for which he wants no blame for lack of achievement.

With his powerful rhetoric on American Education today, the President gave the speech Americans wanted to hear - "setting world-class standards, rewarding outstanding teachers, paying more for math and science teachers, paying more to put great teachers into failing schools, more charter schools, teacher accountability, cutting edge plans, 21st century skills, etc etc."

Of course the President knows everything he "promised" to the American people are things he can't deliver.

The only possibility of making good on these promises would require the courage to use the "historic opportunity" created by our collapsing economy. For a brief period of time, President Obama could hold the $100 Billion Education Stimulus purse strings and compel States to actually do what he says should be done for America's children.

He had the power today - in one speech - to push American education into the 21st century, but he let the opportunity pass.

Instead, he chose to make bold, lofty and implausible promises for action for which only State legislatures are accountable. The moment to demand change is when one has control of the money, not after it has been given away.

And so, American children remain trapped in a 20th century school system where they haven't a prayer of preparing for the high wage, high growth careers of the 21st century.

More Detail on Pres. Obama's "Hope" for K-12 Improvement

From the White House Press Office:

K-12: Fostering a Race to the Top

To excel in the global economy, we must adopt world-class standards, assessments, and accountability systems to upgrade the quality of teaching and learning in America’s classrooms.

· The President encourages an end to the practice of low-balling state reading and math standards, and will promote efforts to enhance the rigor of state-level curriculum to better foster critical thinking, problem solving, and the innovative use of knowledge needed to meet 21st century demands.

· He will push to end the use of ineffective "off-the-shelf" tests, and promote the development of new, state-of-the-art data and assessment systems that provide timely and useful information about the learning and progress of individual students.

· With funding provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the U.S. Department of Education will work with states to upgrade data systems to track students progress and measure the effectiveness of teachers.

Teachers are the single most important resource to a child’s learning. America must re-invest in the teaching profession by recruiting mid-career professional and ensuring that teachers have the world’s best training and preparation. We must take action to improve teaching in classrooms that need it most, while demanding accountability and performance.

· The President will improve teacher quality by dramatically expanding successful performance pay models and rewards for effective teachers, scaling up federal support for such programs in up to an additional 150 school districts nationwide.

· He supports improved professional development and mentoring for new and less effective teachers, and will insist on shaping new processes to remove ineffective teachers.

· The President supports a new, national investment in recruiting the best and brightest to the field of teaching, and will invest in scaling-up innovative teacher preparation and induction models.

Driving Innovation and Expecting Excellence

America’s schools must be incubators of innovation and success. Where charter schools are successful, states should be challenged to lift arbitrary caps and make use of successful lessons to drive reform throughout other schools.

· President Obama will encourage the growth of successful, high-quality charter schools, and challenge states to reform their charter rules and lift limits that stifle growth and success among excellent schools.

· The President supports rigorous accountability for all charter schools, and will encourage higher-quality processes for the approval and review of charter schools, as well as plans to shut-down charters if schools are failing to serve students well.

Obama "Hopes" for Improvement in American Education

President Obama outlined his thoughts on American Education Reform in a speech today at the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce entitled "A Complete and Competitive American Education."

Here is the essence of his hopes for improving U.S. education "cradle to career" - nice alliteration!

First, these are his GOALS:

1- Make America’s entire education system the envy of the world.
2- Prepare every child, everywhere in America, to out-compete any worker, anywhere in the world.

The first is tricky to measure (need an envy meter) and the second is just impossible. Not every American child can be expected to out-compete any worker in the world. So we start with lofty, vague and unattainable goals.

These are the actions he hopes to encourage:

1. Challenge our states to develop a cutting-edge plan to raise the quality of your early learning programs to ensure that children are better prepared for success by the time they enter kindergarten.
2. Challenge our states to adopt world-class standards that will bring our curriculums (sic) into the 21st century. Our curriculum for eighth graders is two full years behind top performing countries.
3. Call on our nation’s Governors and state education chiefs to develop standards and assessments that measure whether students possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking, entrepreneurship and creativity.
4. Provide teachers and principals with the information they need to make sure students are prepared to meet those standards. Far too few states have data systems like the one in Florida…
5. Support the idea of recruiting, preparing, and rewarding outstanding teachers.
6. New incentives to bring teachers to schools where they are needed most. Offering extra pay to Americans who teach math and science.
7. Treating teachers like professionals while also holding them more accountable – in up to 150 more school districts (out of 13,862 total districts)
8. Expansion of charter schools that results in the advancement of excellence. Remove caps on number of quality charters.
9. Encouraging consideration of a longer school day and longer school year
10. Turning around our low-performing schools. Just 2,000 high schools in cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia produce over 50% of America’s dropouts
11. Providing every American with a quality higher education – whether it’s college or technical training. 
12. Hold parents more accountable. Because government cannot turn off the TV or put away the video games. Teachers cannot make sure your children leave for school on time and do their homework when they get back at night. These are things only a parent can do. 

After the President's speech I felt warm, I felt fuzzy - he is an excellent orator. But the hopes he outlines are mostly State responsibility and while he and Secretary Duncan have $100 BILLION that could be used to push states in the directions the President wants, most of the money is being poured into Governors hands so fast it is impossible to extract any meaningful commitments.

So President Obama, like all the Presidents in the past three decades says what they hope and wish and pray will happen, but is unwilling to truly help our children get a better K-12 education.

COMING SOON: The speech the President should have delivered...