Wednesday, April 17, 2002

Just how shrill can things become you ask? This article does a pretty good job of summing it up.  I am absolutely fascinated by the link between San Diego reform efforts and the attempt to push through a pro-teacher union piece of legislation in Sacramento.  Nearly every major paper in California has written an opinion condemning the legislation as a bad idea, but still CTA presses on.  In essence it would become illegal for a district to take a strong pedagogical point of view like SDCS has done.  Oh CTA, (what exactly is the Shakespearian line??), me thinks you do protest too much! http://www.cta.org/cal_educator/v6i6/feature_teachers.html   2:49:02 PM     Just for fun - an article from the San Diego Union Tribune about how teachers respond to a classroom laboratory set up to meet Alvarado standards.  Given the level of discord between the teachers' union and management, this kind of coverage is very rare.  I have to say that when I went to San Diego last summer, I was somewhat skeptical that Tony could be trying to sell a pedagogical approach that is any better than what had been in place before.  However, after a few visits to San Diego schools where his system is being fully implemented, I came to realize how Alvarado truly has a better mousetrap.  Whenever you can get the discussion focused on the quality of the mousetrap, which happens in this article, people invariably support Alvarado's ideas.  It is when we start talking about adult needs and implementation issues that people suddenly start becoming shrill. http://www.uniontrib.com/news/education/20020116-9999_7m16lab.html 2:42:13 PM     Here is the research paper by Elmore that was cited on the Darwin Magazine site.  Elmore is a pretty heavy-weight researcher.  The mere fact that he was drawn to the efforts in New York #2 speaks volumes. http://www.nctaf.org/publications/Elmore.pdf 2:36:01 PM     This is probably the best comprehensive statement by Anthony Alvarado and Elaine Fink about how their knowledge management practices could be improved with improved communication technology.  This proposal was written in 1998, far before the knowledge management craze hit.  In it, we can see how Tony is starting to build a vision for how peer interaction, virtual visitations and access to documented best practices could be augmented with he was calling NetLearn.  I am uncertain what, if anything, became of this proposal.  I will continue to poke around.  I think this is definitely worth the read. http://lilt.ics.hawaii.edu/lilt/papers/1998/NetLearn.pdf  2:32:26 PM     In this book review, we see how Alvarado's practices within New York District #2, which has become a model for efforts in San Diego, are identified as best practices for education organizations hoping to make use of knowledge management in order to ramp up organization-wide capacity.  My thinking is that we should try to understand as best as possible the strategies that Alvarado has used in the past before looking at what technology-based approach my augment their efforts today.  Material covering Alvarado starts about half way down under the title "Examples from education." http://www2.darwinmag.com/connect/books/book.cfm?ID=244 Also, it might be a good idea to get the book.   2:26:45 PM     Here is a brief introduction to some of the work that Tony Alvarado has been doing in the area of professional development for teachers.  It does not go into detail, but it does show the extent to which he is respected in the field.  I also include it so that you can see a picture of Tony.  The gesture is pure Alvarado. http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/edupdate/2000/june00/19jun00.html 2:19:51 PM

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