The Policy Horizon in STEM: From Barrier to Breakthrough?

Chris Roe: And this is gonna be a really exciting panel. So with that, I'm gonna introduce Dennis Bartels as the moderator for this panel. And one of the things that I'm very pleased is that Dennis, in addition to being really one of the national experts on science and STEM education policy, is also one of my board members at CSLNet. So Warren Baker is the chair of our board. Linda Katehi, from the last panel, is on my board and Dennis is also on my board. So I'm very pleased to have such a great team of leaders behind me. Just quickly I'll introduce Dennis. He's with the, he's executive director of the Exploratorium in San Francisco and he's been the executive director since 2006. As I mentioned, Dennis is really a national and international expert of STEM education. He's spoken at conferences and around the world about the importance of this topic. He's served on numerous panels with NSF on very important topics. He's also served on the Presidential Commission of Advisors on Science and Technology, PCAST, it's a mouthful, other education working group. So we're very blessed to have him as a moderator for this panel and I'm gonna turn it over to him now to get us kicked off. Thanks Dennis. Dennis Bartels: Good afternoon. It's my pleasure to introduce this very exciting panel of individuals. Most of them I absolutely know and so I know this is gonna be sort of information packed. To address policy and the question has to be asked, well why policy and what is policy? So just to define it very quickly, it's the laws, the programs, the resources and the regulations that sort of define the kind of work environment that our teachers and our kids get to work inside every single day. So it's everything from the elementary and secondary education act of the federal level to our stake curriculum frameworks, to our teacher licensing and certification system, to the California subject matter projects which include the science project and the mathematics project and even the programs out of the National Science Foundation. So why does this matter and certainly why does this matter to somebody from the Exploratorium, what many of you think is the informal sector? And that's because we've actually been supporting and training teachers for the last 39 years and have one of the largest teacher development programs in the bay area. And I have to say that it's discouraging time and again to provide teachers with some, I think, the richest learning experiences that they could possibly have as part of their careers and really learn lots of variety of ways to engage every child, especially that puzzling child, because if you talk to teachers, teachers always talk about that one kid who they're just having a really difficult time reaching or getting a hold of. And to provide them with all these things and then they hear repeatedly, Well, we went back to the classroom and we didn't have the materials that we needed, or, We went back and we were told to teach to the text or teach to the test, or, We went back and we really just didn't kind of have the friendly environment that we needed to put a lot of the things you showed us into practice. That's why I think all of us who've been doing this work need that very friendly science and math and STEM-friendly policy environment for us to do our very best work, but then I add that policy is a very blunt instrument. Policy when made at the state or federal level has the ability to both enable and to constrain. I wouldn't recommend it in all cases. And in fact, as Milbrey McLaughlin at Stanford likes to say, Policy always comes with unintended consequences. In fact, any of us who do serious work in the policy arena know that there are moments in which we actually advocate it for something that we later deeply regretted. And I can speak personally, a couple of times with the things I was advocating for made better weapons than tools and I was very sorry to see them implemented in the way they were. And so I wish actually every policy had some sort of supervision so we could try it out for seven years and then it would automatically go away unless we really liked it and then we could actually keep it going. I think a lot of us feel that way about the current elementary and secondary education act. So with these cautions in mind, I do want us to sort of get away from the sort of ease away to focus on problems which is often the type of these policy discussions get us into but instead to focus of this panel on solutions, or at least potential solutions. The other thing I'll ask them is to keep their answers very crisp if we can. So we have time actually, I know for policy people it's kind of difficult but we'll do our best so we have time for questions from the audience which I think is very important. But let me introduce this panel. First to my far right, Lupita Cortez Alcala. She is the deputy superintendent of instruction and learning support for the superintendent of public instruction, which basically means she's in charge of everything. From curriculum and instruction to teacher support to what would really be the comparable of a provost at a university, all of the programs. She also has a lot of experience in government affairs of both the K-12 and higher education level and knows a great deal about state and federal legislation and funding. Next to her is Susan Hackwood, who's the executive director of the California Council on Science and Technology. And for those of you who don't know, that is the state's comparable of the National Academy of Science, so 150 individuals, scientists, CEOs and others who help guide the state on its science and technology policy both in education and in terms of actual science and engineering. And in addition to that, she is professor of electrical engineering at the University of California Riverside and she was the founding dean at Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California Riverside, the first woman dean of a major research university in the United States. Linda Roberts, another close colleague is next to Susan. Linda led the US Department of Education's office of Educational Technology from its inception in 1993, the birth year of the web, interestingly, to January 2001. She also is a trustee of the Sesame Workshop and Educational Development Center, both groups that I admire a great deal. And she actually was one of my colleagues on the PCAST STEM education working group that just completed its report about a year ago, I believe it was Linda. Next to her Steve Schneider, senior program director of STEM at WestEd, a local research development education think tank in San Francisco that has both national and international portfolio. Dr. Schneider has been the principal investigator of numerous initiatives including a great deal of grants and programs out of the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, among others including the What Works Clearinghouse. He also has been very involved most recently with some of the NAEP and different frameworks that are going on in terms of science education. And then finally Sue Stickel is the deputy superintendent for the Sacramento County Office of Education. She previously served as the deputy superintendent for curriculum and instruction at the California Department of Education, so there's a bit of a connection here. She's a recognized expert in curriculum and instruction and development and professional development. And in 2010, she also served as the project director for the California Academic Standards Commission as a considered the national Common Core Standards in English and Math and now Science. So with that, what I'd like to do is toss in a general question and have each of the panelist who'd like to try it on, it's this: That if you could change only two policies that are currently in existence either at the state or federal level that would have the greatest impact on improving the opportunities and outcomes for all of our children in STEM, which two policies would you focus on and why? Lupita Alcala:Well I had three. If I had to choose two of the three, I think a redirection of resources from state and federal levels to facilitate the development of both state and national STEM programs for all students. As we learned earlier today, professional development is key. The second is assessment and accountability has to be reflective of STEM to include project-based problem solving and integrated instruction. So the third which I wanted to mention, it was comprehensive STEM plan but since I had to focus myself on two, those would be it. Bartels: Thank you very much Lupita. Susan Hackwood: Oh I did worse than that, I had four. Okay I'll cut it down to two. I'll be referencing a report that our organization just completed by the way, which is called innovate to innovation. It's a result of a year and a half look at the innovation capacity in California. A big chunk of which is digitally enhanced learning and there's a separate report on this. So when I get down two things, I'm picking out of this report Dennis. So I think the biggest two things that we would pick up is to redefine the classroom environment. The classroom of the future is not going to be the classroom it is now. The classroom of the future is a mobile learning environment with access to any time and any place. It's in school and out of school. It's a different learning environment on the policies that go along with enabling that and removing those policies that are preventing that from happening. And the second one I pick out is the teacher. The teacher of the future is different than the teacher that we have now. A teacher of the future will be based on STEM learning because that's the way that we are, our society is going. And the teacher may be real, maybe virtual and maybe a team teaching, but the teacher is no longer standing up in front of a classroom teaching a class of students. The teacher is alongside working directly with an individual student and the rest of the materials available through other means, through technology, through the web, whatever. My two. Bartels: Oh perfect, excellent. Linda? Linda Roberts: Okay well I agree with everything that's been said so far and I'm so struck at this focus on teachers. And so I think what we really need to do is understand that teachers are everywhere. They are in our classrooms, they are in our communities, they are in our homes, they are on the web. And we need to find the policies that make it possible to match better what students want to know, need to know, could know, match them better with all the potential teachers that are out there. That's my first strategy. My second strategy is to focus, stop talking about the learners but really give them the opportunity to learn this theme here that you'll hear over and over again, but really to free them up. So if there are kids out there who want to learn about astronomy or want to do something in fiber optics, it shouldn't be you have to take a course, it ought to be, you ought to be able to find the resources that are there to help you learn to become the expert that you want to. And I think, while I agree that we have done a terrible job in reaching out to what I would describe as, and you've described this, the underserved populations. I think we have done an even worse job in reaching out to the gifted kids in this country and we are selling them short. So students on the one, learners on the one hand, teachers on the other. Bartels: Thanks Linda, great. Steve. Steve Schneider: It's on, oh good, wonderful. I'm great with technology. I'm gonna focus first on student testing because it's been driving the system and it became quite clear on a national academy panel recently that what's really been hurting, especially our elementary school besides not supporting teachers and the professional development that really is needed and has been more or less removed, but the notion of making science as important as mathematics and literacy. And I think that comes from the notion of hopefully even as we're moving to the new to assessment consortia that the SMARTER Balanced and so on, science is still being the step child and it can't be that any longer, especially with our elementary school children. Sue Stickel: It's very good to go last because I agree across the board but I'm not that crisp. So first of all I'd like to focus on credentialing, I think and I heard in some of the earlier panel, credentialing in order to accomplish STEM education needs to change remarkably. It needs to change in how it is that we prepare, we need to partner both the academic and the on the ground teaching in the classroom and we need to make sure that our elementary teachers are much better prepared to understand and teach both mathematics and science, and so, that would be my first. My second, I agree about everything in terms of teachers and teachers are everywhere but I'm also aware that every site that I work with needs to have a strong leader. And so I would focus and change policy in terms of ensuring that leaders at sites are better prepared to lead that type of change in their schools. Bartels: Wow, fantastic. Actually, I don't know if you were keeping track, but I was. So we talked a lot about teacher development both resources and the types of support, we talked quite a bit about assessment and accountability, technology and how that might change our vision of the classroom in the future. And in fact, several hands actually, people who would actually have a different conception of what that whole teaching-learning process looks like and where it happens. Teachers are everywhere, this notion of sort of 24/7 learning, sort of the science requirements and the ESEA, teacher credentialing and preparation and then leadership on sites, which is a pretty tight list to start with. Let me take it a step further and a little bit closer to well then how would you make any of these things happen? As you know, we're in a period of very tight resources. There's not a whole lot to spare. But again, if we gave you a magic wand and said there's sort of one place where we can make a major investment, either in an existing line or in something brand new, an existing program or a brand new initiative or for something more in general, where would you guys put that singular investment again to make the biggest difference? Alcala: I mentioned this before but I think it would be on teacher and administrator professional development. How do you make things fun, relevant and understandable? So teachers need to understand what it is and how to do it. So my number one investment would be in teacher professional development and administrative professional development just as Sue Stickel had mentioned earlier. Bartels: Great. Hackwood: I think I especially given our financial situation in the state, the biggest difference would happen if we had access, if we had universal access to technology to the net in our schools and throughout the state. You have Tom Torlakson say that, that's on top of the list of his initiatives. It's unthinkable, unthinkable that South Korea has all of their textbooks online and we don't even have connections into all of our schools and we're in California. So I would put access right up there and the things that prevent access from happening. Bartels: Excellent, thank you Susan. Roberts: I was gonna say access so I will second it obviously, but I would add one other thing. I think once we have access, then we really need to be able to find the highest quality, the best stuff that's there. And it's a pretty wild, you know, it's a wild wild west out there and I don't actually know how to do this but I think there has to be a better way to allow the best learning resources and I mean that broadly, to be there when you need it. So access first but then real high quality stuff available. Bartels: Thanks Linda. Schneider: I'm gonna keep it and the earlier speaker up here said teacher support and I'm gonna have to go there with our colleagues here. I think it's a matter of when we look at our school days, school days are getting cut, there's no professional development days. I think we really need to find ways to support our teachers and enhance the professional lives of those teachers. Stickel: And I along with a couple of other folks would focus my dollars on professional development also. Now when I talk about professional development, I don't mean the sit for 40 hours and absorb information. I mean certainly there is sitting and getting but there's also practice in the classroom. There is ongoing conversation about how that's going. There's coaching, there's technical assistance, there's all the pieces that build a robust model of learning for staff in schools that need to occur. Bartels: So a lot of people picked on teacher development so let's go back there and push a little bit harder. We have a system that extensively is for to prepare teachers that run through our universities and emergency credentialing systems and the like. Arguably, we had in California one of the best teacher development support systems 20 years ago. There was evidence of things like the California Subject Matter Projects and in the millions of dollars of the National Science Foundation put out there for STEM teachers that as shift of policy almost disappeared. What would you imagine, how would we begin to rebuild a comprehensive systemic system for all STEM teachers so that they have continuous support and growth over their entire careers? Any specific proposals you want to put on the table? And maybe we can get the superintendent back here in the room. Alcala: Well that's a million dollar question. Bartels: Probably more than a million. Alcala: You know, there is you know, externships for instance that some folks here alluded to the Intel and Google and others that perhaps we can use summer, you know, summertime teachers that are off and to do externships where these business could help fund their ability to go into these businesses and actually learn about the relevance of some of what they're teaching and bring it into the classroom. So I think that Sue Stickel was right on and along with other panelist that it's not just receiving 40 hours of instruction on the formula and how to get there and how the students, you know, take the bubble test. It's about, and really truly understanding these subjects and how they're integrated and how they work together and how to provide that relevance in that and making it, again, fun for students and something that they want to look forward to attending. So there are things that business could do, business industry as well as, you know our own professional development at the, you know CDE or local county office level that could make it so that we could be a true partnership and it could be a win-win for all. So I think that we really need to integrate the school of educations along with the state local county levels and the business community to really do, be able to offer these opportunities to teachers and professional development opportunities that could be a financial win for them but at the same time, they could bring that expertise into the classroom. Hackwood: As we were doing this work on innovation, going up and down the state, we worked with an extraordinary group of people and I see several of them in the audience today. First of all we have a group of practicing science and math teachers that are a part of our organization and these are the, just the best teachers. These are the guys you really want to see in our classroom and I see Suzanne because she was somewhere in the room. Suzanne, could you put your hand up? Okay Suzanne is a member of our Teachers Advisory Council and Jim Vanides is here, I see from HP. We brought together teachers and industry and academics. And I mean by academics people from the computer science department at Cal Poly, people from Cogswell College who teach multimedia. We discovered that there was a real opportunity to do a new type of professional development and professional development that would involve a public-private partnership that would invite the tech industries to be involve with the teachers directly and for departments of computer science and media departments within our academic institutions to teach the teachers the best practices to be able to use the technology to their best advantages. Teachers have got enough on their plate teaching, then to learn a new technology and the speed of the change of technology is too much. But by developing these kinds of partnerships and the state supporting or at least getting out of the way so that they could grow was actually a true opportunity for California to take a leadership role. Roberts: Well, I have to tell you, that is the most exciting thing I've heard in a long time and I've been in the public policy business for you know, 20 years and I'm sitting here thinking, go for it. I mean one of the things that policy ought to do is spur action. Not just, you know, talking about it. This is an incredible model that it if works in California, it could work all over the United States. And as I was, you know, getting ready for this meeting, I was thinking about the industry that is in this state and the universities that are here and the school districts. And I think what's, it's Susan right? What is so exciting about this strategy is that first of all, it uses the best of what you've got. It doesn't reinvent something new, it takes what you have and it moves with it. But the second piece of it that involves, I think, real policy is to say this is what we will value. So we don't go back to the old ways of, you know, the 40 hour courses or whatever and call that training. We have to think about just as we think about how kids learn, we have to think about how adults learn and make it relevant, make it available when it's needed and constantly evolve it with the people who are learning as well. I mean, I want to say go do it, do it, do it, do it. Do it as fast as you can. And Steve would probably say, And measure it. Find out, no really, find out does it change what happens in the classrooms? Because it could be the best of the best and the best and by the way, one of the other things I wanted to invest in was changing testing because if you don't change the assessments, if you don't change where the high stakes are, doesn't matter how good the support is for teachers. They're gonna go back and do what they have to do to survive the next step. Bartels: So I'll take a moderator's privilege here and suggest that this public-private partnership, the private side be expanded to all science-rich institutions. Roberts: What I meant to mention of course. Bartels: Because there are science centers, there are national laboratories. Roberts: Yes. Bartels: There are commerce, I think Bear and Merck are perfect examples of how they have stayed with Pittsburg and New Jersey and made big differences as for profits. So any place where there's great science. And you're right, if you look in California, it's really an embarrassment of riches, why haven't we gone after every science-rich institution to partner up with a local school district? Hackwood: Dennis, seeing as you've broken the chain, I'm gonna break the chain just for a moment. Yeah and there are really new opportunities, assessment is absolutely essential. Assessment, maybe in different ways, why not have a system like Yelp where teachers can post information on a regular basis so teachers can impair one program to another. As well as the bean counting and figuring out what the students are learning. But why not have a different type of assessment system? Bartels: Okay so Steve, we'll bring back the chain. Schneider: Just a quick note. I think we have to think about how we leverage current technologies. I think there is a real essential piece of face to face which I think most of us are used to in how professional development's done. It has its very strong advantages but it also has its disadvantage, the sense of cost of travel, a set time when you have to be there. When we look at systems like Illuminate, Skype, Milton Chen's run with Edutopia and providing resources that are out there, looking at like PBS's teacher line. How can we build new courses, make them just in time available and integrate as we've said before, not just the education community but some of the expertise and bring real life kinds of things right to the teacher when they're in their pajamas on Saturday and they want to do their PD? So I think overall we have to look at new ways of doing things to sort of break the mold of how people have thought about professional development. A number of people are moving in that direction and I see that as something that may open it up for more people. Bartels: Sue? Stickel: The only thing I would add, those are wonderful answers and I would say that high school today is exactly the same as high school that I attended and we'll sum it up as many years ago. It hasn't changed. We exist in departments, we teach math, we teach science, we do little to integrate what it is that we do and on our campuses. And so all of the suggestions that have been made across are what needs to happen, when I look at outstanding projects like Ford PAS or Project Lead the Way, those are projects that truly are integrating and putting departments together in across disciplinary approach. Bartels: So we actually have a lot of energy around the assessment question and I sense the same with our constituents here. I would argue actually that the assessment issue is actually a market failure, not a technical failure. And by that I would mean that the types of assessments that we want that are much more complicated and complex that we want students to take, in fact there's been a great deal of work on those things in the last 20 years. And about 20 years ago, the problem of course was these would have to be administered at about $30.00 per student; in fact, California was one of the leaders in this back in the 90s and that really was what it cost; whereas the Scantrons are pennies per kit. Now we've actually got the price down to about 8-9 dollars per test but it still is not pennies per kit. So either, how long do you think it's gonna take for the technology to get to the point where it can actually can compete with the Scantrons? So that in fact school districts now feel like it's a worthwhile economic investment to invest in these bigger, harder, more difficult assessments for kids. Or do you think there's another way within this policy environment to finally get people off of the cheap and on to the good? Hackwood: Maybe I could start by kind of taking us a little bit further out of the box on this discussion. How many of you have done your genome? Okay. You did it with 23andMe? Okay. Does everyone know what 23andMe is? Okay this is changing the face of medicine. It's turning the medical field upside-down. For $99.00, you can have your genome done by 23andMe here in the bay area. And what they're doing is developing vast gene pools from which you can look at patterns for emergence of what causes a disease, what's the molecular model behind the disease, etcetera, etcetera. If we take this kind of thought and we apply it to education and we apply it to assessment, what would we get out of it? How would we deal with big data pools from which you can see patterns? And I use the example of Yelp, that a simple user interface method I'm getting and answer out. But what about a complete different assessment process where you combine large data sets and look for patterns across data sets? Again, California has the technology to do this. Roberts: And I would say there are companies actually that have been thinking about this for the last 10 years. I was involved with one of them. And there's been policy issues around how you use data and who has the access to the data, even though you might have multimillion data sets on let's just take early reading performance and it's possible to predict, to know from the patterns who's really starting to have problems and what you could do about it. But there are lots of prohibitions on how the data gets used. So we've got to think about not only the RND that's needed in this area but also I think about the policies that you know, we've got to protect privacy but we've got to think about how we use the information that's there in very powerful ways. And one thing that you said Susan that technology makes possible, it's easy, it's inexpensive to track, you know, to track performance and do something about it before failure sets in. Bartels: Sue or Lupita? Alcala: Yes, I just wanted to reiterate that I couldn't agree more. We have as a state joined the SMARTER Balanced consortium, it's national consortium on the assessments of the Common Core. There was two to choose from and California has chosen the SMARTER Balanced Consortium. And the Common Core Standards and English language arts and math are very much geared for 21st century skills and with this integration in mind. So I think that we, while we're not where we probably need to go, we're getting there a little closer. So I just want to make sure to say that. And also we are currently, California is one of 20 states that's helping to develop the Next Generation of Science Standards, NGSS. And so this will definitely take that in mind and there is a writing component across the curriculum will help integrate not only English, traditional English language arts into the different other course subjects in the integrated fashion. So we are moving in that direction but by far, I believe it's about $20.00 to $30.00 Sue per assessment. So I don't know that we can help answer or mitigate the cost at this time just because it is an online assessment, sort of the way how many of you took the GRE online or the MCAT or any of the other assessments where it gives you real time diagnostic sort of information. So we are moving in that direction definitely with the Common Core Standards and with the Next Generation Science Standards through the SMARTER Balanced Assessment. Roberts: But I would urge you guys to in California since you can play a huge role to not only factor what does it cost to give the test but what does it cost in time, in instructional time. What nobody's really factored in is how much time comes out of the classroom, the real learning to prepare for test. And I think you've got to be very careful that you don't make it worse. You know, the unintended consequences here could be horrific. Alcala: Absolutely. Bartels: So I'd like to ask individual question to each panelist and then open it up for questions from our audience. Lupita, this first one's for you and actually has to do with the phase three Race to the Top application. Are we planning in California to go forward and is CDE gonna play a leading role in our application? Alcala: Well CDE did play a leading role in Race to the Top three, I was at two. I was the lead for that and I think Rick Miller's in the room on Race To The Top one, he was with the core superintendents now and I know that there is a support to do that by the core superintendents where there's about seven urban school districts or urban and some rural and some urban school districts that are interested. You know, I hate to dance around this question but I just want to be able to say that we want to be very helpful. What we're concerned with are some of the challenge is modifying the current application down to, you know, the $50 million level versus the $700 million level. The only concern is obligating the state or the local school districts that choose to participate with mandates that for which we have to resources. And so that's really the only concern I think. Bartels: You actually bring up one of those perfect examples of actually the policy insight, you know, sometimes when you're running down blind paths, it always surprise me how much for the federal investment and education that we see for two to five percent in most states, how much influence the federal government still has over our state level policy. So I think it's a prudent thing to evaluate. Sue, let's come to this end, you talked a little bit about the credentialing system. Is the current system working and if not, what could be changed to respond better to the, what we really need for teacher pre-service preparation? Stickel: So is the current system working? I would say no. I wouldand that's hard having been a teacher for so many years. But right now I don't believe that people enter the classroom ready to meet the needs of our students today. They have some information, they have some theory, but they have little on the ground practice or sense of practice. They struggle in many cases with content knowledge. They struggle in many other cases with the strategies necessary to meet the needs of 30 students at one time and to differentiate instruction. And so first and foremost, we do need to change our credentialing system. We need to, at the elementary level make it stronger, require more understanding and expertise in critical areas. They do need to learn to use technology in effective ways, I agree with that. But they also need to be able to learn to work across disciplines and model that starting at the elementary level. Our credentialing system when I look at secondary teachers, by and large, you learn to be a math teacher, you learn to be an English teacher but you don't, for the most part except for very few programs, learn to specialize in STEM education. You don't learn to specialize in the education of the humanities. And we need to change our strategies to help that happen. Bartels: Sue, in fairness to our colleges and universities and schools of education, right now the credentialing commission is just sort of bursting with requirements, some 300 specialized requirements in a current legislation. Is there something we could be taking out of the standards and requirements that could make room for a little more study of STEM? Stickel: So all right, so I'm not sure that it's important that I learn about the constitution of California when I'm preparing to be a teacher, a mathematics teacher. We do a lot of sound bites. We don't do a lot of modeling a practice. And in fairness to universities, in fairness to any alternative certification program, they do have a punch list that they have to meet. And so this is perhaps not a criticism, and please don't take it that way, of what we do but perhaps what we expect is in our programs and when we have that punch list, it makes it very challenging to meet those goals. And so, taking away some of the minutia teaching literacy across the curriculum, teaching, thinking and understanding. Assessment earlier, yes I want technology for assessment, but I also want teachers to be able to learn to use the standards for math practice that are in the Common Core which are not trivial things. Bartels: Yeah, great, thanks Sue. Linda, you were just on the PCAST STEM panel and I think it's sort of known for suggesting that there's two major goals of any STEM program or experience, it should be both preparation and inspiration and it's one of the first reports to suggest that a big part of these goals, in particular the inspiration one could be picked up by a lot of the outer school partners. Would you want to say more about those two particular goals and this notion of sort of a total STEM learning ecology? Roberts: Actually, probably not. That was a hard question. I want to pick up on the inspire part of it because I think there are so many opportunities to engage students that we're not taking advantage of and I really think technology is our tremendous ally there. And I think it was in the previous panel, somebody mentioned that Elmo you know, was into STEM. Well not only Elmo, I happen to be on the board of Sesame Workshop and we have discovered that we can engage parents and kids in thinking critically about what's happening out there, you know, what does a bug do and you know, how does a bug see the world and what are the things that, what are the kinds of questions you can ask about the world that really truly make it an interesting place and engaging? So we can use technology across the board. I think particularly to open up to explore to make aware, not just of what we can learn about science, math, engineering, design, whatever we're talking about, but to bring information and bring resources to, as I said before, very early on, to kids, to parents, to communities, to teachers. Susan I'm really, you know, the world of the classroom has changed and we've for to make sure it continues to change. That the walls that are there do not define just what's possible but the world is our classroom and I think unless we have access, we can't do, we really can't move forward. And it's not just access for some, I spent time with godchildren in Atherton last night. I mean the experiences they're having in their public schools are light years away from the experiences I know that kids are having you know, in the little communities I passed as I was driving up here this morning. So we can't do it piece meal. We really have to decide we're gonna do it for everybody and since this is my last piece I just want to say one thing, having the right goals are more important than whether or not you actually meet them fully. So I think one of this, the things that you've got to do in this STEM summit and in the community that you pull together is being concrete about what you hope will be different three years from now, five years from now and keep yourself laser-like on those goals and not let anybody divert you. Because once you know what you're gonna accomplish, you can do it. Bartels: Well next for Susan. Susan I know you spent a lot of time in this broadband access issue and I thought deeply about it, what do you think is needed next to keep the ball rolling up field? Hackwood: I think firstly the implementation of broadband access to all schools or all current schools, in fact, broadband access to everyone everywhere. Many other countries have this. California is way down at the bottom, it's amazing how far down we are. There are some tools that we can use to get there. I mentioned private-public partnerships. There's a lot of companies out there that are interested in partnering on this. I don't know whether you saw a couple of weeks ago Arne Duncan came out with a digital promise which is exactly in line with the things that I've been talking about today. There may be some funding in that stream to bring to bear. And the three leaders on the digital promise, I'll point out Irwin Jacobs, John Morgridge and Reed Hastings, who are three superstars in California. We have good access there so we should certainly be using that kind of capability. And most important, making sure that our policy makers are aware that this needs to happen and to provide them with the tools to be able to make it implement. Bartels: Okay great, thanks Susan. Last question from me and then I'll start by people coming to the microphone, it's for Steve. Steve, you spend a lot of time with standards. Are standard our enemy or our friend? Schneider: Yes. At this point in time, I had the opportunity to work with Linda and others in organizing the latest two NAEP frameworks which has a lot to do with national look at standards, except from an assessment perspective. One was the new assessment that came out in 2009 on the NAEP science which really pushed the field. And if we were to say there's assessments out there that we might be able to push that would be pretty good, I have to say the NAEP framework is a well balanced assessment. It is not cheap but they do hands on in science, simulations in science and also your standard methodology of multiple choice testing, but very few of our children get to experience that. But I think if you looked at it as an example of where we could go with an assessment, I think in that case I would say that those kinds of standards might be really interesting especially for practitioners to look at as well as policy makers in saying this is what we want our students to know and be able to do. We just finished the first technological and engineering literacy framework that we dragged my colleague into the process and she will tell you it was quite a strain when you start looking at standards and the development of standards when you have the SD side with is you know, the computer literacy in classrooms which has now pushed more into processes in the last can you use certain software and we also had the ITEEA which tend to be the technology us in schools. Not technology in the sense of computer literacies but the idea of systems and engineering processes. We brought those to communities together and looking at a place where we brought together as Sue said, the notion of scientist, engineers and this is for both frameworks, practitioners, educators from universities. I think that's the kind of thing that build the kinds of assessment that NAEP brings to bear. And like I said, unfortunately, most of our students in any state, I think there are 1,600 to 1,800 students in the state of California that will actually participate because it's a very sophisticated matrix sampling method, but there are now 25 urban districts that are participating in NAEP and looking at their growth based on the NAEP assessment and the kinds of assessment standards that we hoped that all students will know in the US. So in that case, I find that good, I'm hoping the Common Core and like I said before, I hope science gets share shrift of this in the sense of what happens with the new science standards. I hope they're more aligned with the notion of problem based learning, let's get away from all the fact, let's have our kids engaging in real science, real mathematics that show them why should I learn this? I taught high school for 11 years, if you don't answer the question why, just Because I told you so doesn't go very far. So that would be my response. Bartels: Great, thanks Steve. Okay your questions. Ellen Peneski: Hello my name is Ellen Peneski, I'm a consultant with the San Diego Science Alliance and I've heard that a lot of people alluding to teacher professional development and so forth and we need more. My question is, if this panel has any recommendations for motivation for teachers to pursue professional development activities? You know they have, it was alluded, too that they have all these other things to deal with in the classroom, whether it's you know, the poor infrastructure of the classroom or behavioral issues or attendance or all the standards they need to meet, is there time for professional development? Or in a past life, I taught, was a project manager for installing a classroom portal project and one teacher said to me, Well why should I learn how to use this classroom portal? When the district runs out of money, we'll change the tools. We've had three tools in the last five years. What's gonna motivate me to do it now? Or lastly, you know, I could receive a pink slip tomorrow. So why should I do all of this? So not only is there a need, I believe, for the programs for professional development but I'm asking what are some recommendations on how to motivate teachers to attend those programs for professional development? Bartels: Steve? Schneider: I think it comes down to a cultural issue in our schools and with the reduction of support for professional development but also the nature of how schools are in this country. More or less as teachers most of the time, they do it on their own time versus making it part of the actually professional work day. And I think if we can change some context, I know that might be a little copout, you're saying, Where's that gonna come from? But I think until we go through that mind shift and that structural change I've conducted professional development, I've evaluated a lot of professional development and it always seems to be, the rich get richer. You see the same 10% of the teachers and all the events that go on. So how do we reach down? And that's gonna be a structural change in my mind where it's expected and it's compensated and part of the actual workday of a teacher. Bartels: Anyone else? Sue? Stickel: So certainly having it be part of the workday is important piece and I think there's ways to look at education and how it is that we deliver instruction that invite collaborative behavior with teachers and having them support each other as part of the day. But I also think that, and I alluded, too earlier sitting in professional development where you are the receiver and not the doer is not, I would not look forward to going to it, I'll be very honest. And I think if we put our professional development together along with including it as a part of the day so the teachers are involved in the projects that they're doing so that they walk away with real tools and real things that they can use in their classrooms. And I'm not talking about computers or things like that but tools, ideas, curriculum that they can use in their classroom, I think they are motivated because I haven't met a lot of teachers that don't want to do a better job. Bartels: Yeah. I'd have to agree with you Sue that one of the questions is actually the quality of it and I would say that actually quality professional development programs even in this very resource-poor time they still come to a lot of programs I'm familiar with like at Caltech what Jennifer and Jerry have done with Lawrence Hall of Science. So they're discerning consumers as well and they actually know what helps them. Roberts: And Bartels: Next question? Roberts: Can I just say one quick thing? I think this is where we could, you know, when there are good things, there are good examples out there, if you look at the math form, you look at some of the communities that practice that have formed around mathematics and science teaching, there's some really wonderful resources for teachers that don't necessarily require that you go somewhere that you, you can get help when you need it and not take the help when you don't need it. Bartels: Thank you Linda. Rick Beach: I'm Rick Beach with the San Diego Science Alliance and a regional coordinator with CSLNet and Dennis I compliment you in the panel for illuminating a number of these policies especially in the sense of educating me in terms of what might be barriers. In my life experience trying to motivate people, the phrase They value what you measure or They value the things that they recognize is the motivation either intrinsically or extrinsically. And so I'm struck by, it's great to have the idea that we would have fun in our classrooms, we have teachers that are creating that yet we have this credentialing program which has this long list of requirements and the pre-service is kind of generating last generation teachers now. And so we have this odd discontinuity between what you're talking about and the policy barriers that keep it from happening. And so I'm struck by what does the panel think is a way to get past this barrier of measuring the wrong things for the stuff you're talking about? We're measuring Scantron tests and frankly I didn't know that it was only eight bucks to measure it differently and I would campaign pretty strongly to say, you know that investment might change all of the things you're talking about yet that's not what we're, that seems to be the barrier still in place. So this thing about valuing something and then finding a way to measure and recognize it, how do you make that barrier go away? Bartels: Great question. Anybody want to jump in? You know I'll start while they're thinking about it. I have initial thought on this one which is it's a peculiar thing in California. There's probably a historian and a political scientist could figure this out but I haven't seen it nearly to the same extent in the other states which is this incredible over qualification of everything. To the point where it's even harder to read the education code and not actually break the law by following another law because they're in direct contradiction with one another. And it just feels like in California, going all the way up frankly to our constitution and the way we publicly finance schools which to me is still the biggest difference between California and Massachusetts. It feels like we should just blow up and start over again which is start with the teacher credentialing and look at it from the ground up, we should look at how we finance schools, look at it from the ground up and it'll take political courage factor for people to say it's time to start over because in truth you're exactly right. We think about what we want to add but we don't spend nearly enough time talking about what we want to pull out or get rid of or just toss away because it doesn't apply anymore. And if we did a really good pruning and grafting, I think we would get a long distance towards what you're describing. Alcala: I just want to add that you know, some of the [IB] staff is here and I was gonna talk about the legislature and the governor's office and Bartels: Yes, contribute to this. Alcala: The amount of state, you know, regulations and laws that we have to adhere to and just to put in concept we've got $18 billion in cuts over the last three years. And what you say what motivates a teacher, well we need to professionalize that profession and respect that profession and we can do that through compensation. And so we all know that you know, if you can go into the biotech, you know, first year biotech in company, you can make $80,000 and the starting salary for a teacher is $33,000 in California, just to put it in perspective. So we got to make sure to compensate it and to add the professional development. And because if you survive the credentialing, you survive your first year of teaching, you know, you got to be motivated by something else and most teachers are in the profession because they care and they want to serve and they want to teach kids. So I just want to add that you know, in implementing an ACR88, I was gonna say assembly member senator superintendent Torlakson, sponsored and authored, I think that these sorts of things need to be brought to life with regards to credentialing professional development and really figuring out at the state level, at the legislative level what those barriers are and how we can help prevent some of that so that some of this good teaching can occur. Bartels: Yeah, great point, thank you. I believe we have time for one more question. Caroline: Hi my name is Caroline. I work for private business so I appreciate to be in room of educators and asking a very nave question. As private business, we would like to partner with the public schools in the areas where our private business works. And some of the things I've heard you talk about up on this panel the last panels which is wouldn't it be great if all businesses did that? You've also talked about the fact that there are a lot of policies in place that protect the data when you start assessing schools and as an outsider looking at this, there's also a lot of policies in place to protect the teachers when we start looking at data for schools. And I do understand and I'm sure it's very hard, you know Steve you said you taught high school 11 years, I haven't done that, I can only imagine. But when it comes to private enterprise looking to invest in the public school system, there is an expectation that there is sort of a meritocracy where you can fund the teachers who are getting the most success. This is probably a very un-PC thing for be saying this room but you can fund the most successful strategies in the classroom, the teachers who have maintained that motivation despite low wages, despite the fact that they haven't been given the resources. How would you suggest private enterprise start to think about investing in the public school space and sort of get beyond, you know, our expectation that we will be able to analyze that data and get to the programs that are most successful? Bartels: Great, Susan? Hackwood: Can I take a start of that with two ideas. One is that this meeting today has been organized a large part by the CSLNet. CSLNet is seeking to be that provider of the glue that will enable best practices to be copied. In fact, I gave Chris an analogy that the CSLNet is taking an environment which is like frog spawn, it's got little seeds of great stuff but it's in a static gel and it needs to evolve like Pokemon and become tadpoles so they all scurry around and talk to each other and that's what they're doing. So I think getting connected into that kind of a partnership is the first thing. The second is that I see there is a shift going on in Sacramento. We're in the third year of a program of placing 10 PhD graduates into legislative offices and that believe me is changing the dynamic of the way policy makers are thinking about all sorts of things in STEM. So I see that this is a way of tackling maybe at both ends and I suggest you communicate with Chris over here about the partnerships. Bartels: Yeah. I would add a couple other quick things in that question. One is you can look to some examples in some companies who I think have made a really positive difference like Merck, Bear and some others in their local communities who've really done extraordinary work with the local schools in partnership and they really took time to understand the education system first before they started bringing solutions forwards. And I think the really remarkable examples for all of us, the second thing I would note is the history in the 80s and 90s of school reform. In most states that took this on, it was interesting. There was one common thread and it was often, it was the business community who is leading the fight in the state capital for more resources and more sensible policies to support education and learning. And I haven't seen that same kind of energy in the last 10 years, what you really saw in the 80s and 90s with most of the big reforms. And finally I will quote Bill Gates to sum up, who made the point that sometimes unions are a bit of a red herring. He's done the analysis and he actually can find no correlation between states that are really doing well and states that aren't versus whether they're union or non-union. And in fact some of the states I keep bringing on is Massachusetts of course, which is heavily unionized but is actually leading the nation and doing as well as Singapore in its STEM scores. So I'd be careful not to fall into that trap and assume an automatic correlation between that but I think there's other things that we could study more carefully. So let's thank our panelist one more time. Thank you guys so much.