Week 6

The Retreat!!! Finally, all of the hard work came to fruition this week, and I will not break down this post by day, but will merely recap the general feel of our "Big Ideas Conference: VUCA in the Education World." (VUCA is a military acronym used to describe a time in war when there is total chaos; it is typically the turning point of a war).

We arrived in beautiful New Mexico, and specifically the Tamaya Resort, on Sunday afternoon, which really gave us time to just relax and get familiar with the property and the space. Jason and I took this task to heart by going for a run around the 3 mile running trail that takes you along the Rio Grande and under the shadow of the great Sandia peak, and then we tested out the awesome water slide that goes into one of their 3 pools. In the evening, we went to dinner at a cute little institution restaurant in downtown Bernalillo called "The Range," and I had some very interesting conversations with some of our members, including Paul Kimmelman from Learning Point Associates and Dave Lash, an innovation strategist.

Monday morning was time for Jason and I to assist John with setting up the ball room and getting registration ready. The conference officially began after lunch, and I must say that the "knowledge catchers," (aka dream catchers) that I had commissioned as conference gifts were a big hit. The first session was a mega-session with Tony Bryk and Louis Gomez from the Carnegie Foundation, and Lindsay Martin from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement to discuss the idea of rapid prototyping. The concept really has to do with this idea of having research projects set to 90 day cycles, that really allow researchers to rapidly find answers to small questions, and then have those answers build upon one another to eventually lead to a big picture idea. 90 day cycles are currently being utilized as an effective method of research in the healthcare arena, and the session was aimed to encourage education to try this same prototype for its own projects. Although I have never spent a lot of time thinking about the research priorities of the education sector, this session was still informative. The only qualm I had was when we split up into our "breakout sessions," and I certainly faced ageism with the people at my table questioning my authority of attending the conference due to my obviously youthful appearance. I let off some of my frustrtation with this by taking advantage of the open bar at the reception prior to dinner.

Monday's dinner proved to have one of the most interesting sessions, probably because I could participate fully in the discussion due to its topic. The presentation, hosted by Jillian Darwish, was one on the idea of how fast change occurs, and attempted to take a look at a future learner in 2020. The conversation obviously led to a discussion on how the future of technology, environment and globalism will affect the way learners gather information, and how education researchers and practitioners will have to adapt in order to continue to educate learners effectively in the future. We had very engaging table discussions at our dinner table regarding this topic, and people were interested to hear both mine and Jason's points of view since we were the closest ones at the table who could be considered "digital natives". It is kind of overwhelming to think that the innovations and inventions that will exist in 2020 are ones in which we cannot even imagine today.

Tuesday morning was a full day of conference activities starting with breakfast at 8:00 AM and ending with dinner at 8:00 PM. The morning session was led by Mike Smith, a former under secretary and deputy secretary for the Department of Education, to give a perspective on VUCA in the federal government. We broke out into small group sessions again, where small groups had the opportunity to think about how Knowledge Alliance can assist the research community through the many changes occurring in education. We then ate this ridiculously good buffet lunch that consisted of bbq short ribs and green chili mac and cheese, and after lunch, reconvened for another lecture led by Tom Vander Ark and Ted Kolderie on "Crisis as the Mother of Invention in Education." This discussion led us to think about how the education community can take advantage of the crisis state of education, and how we can use this time to truly be innovative in our practices. We broke into round robin table groups where we were asked to think about and strategize on what we think the greatest levers for change truly are in the education world. As a group, we could not come to a total consensus, but could obviously agree on the fact that the economy, technology, and students themselves will play a key role in deciding the fate of the education community.

The evening activities were followed by another open bar reception and another 5 course dinner, which allowed me to have fascinating conversation with Mike Bowler, the former education reporter for the Baltimore Sun. After dinner, Jim and a panel of members led a wrap-up discussion on the conference as a whole, which aimed to summarize some of the big takeaways from the last 48 hours. The following morning continued the conversation with feedback of the conference being shared over breakfast.

Wednesday morning 8/4/2010 (Happy Birthday, Amy!), Augustus, John and I packed up shop and headed back to the Albuquerque airport to make our return flight home. Once arriving in Baltimore, we made it back to the car, and then spent about 20 minutes trying to find Augustus' car key, which had been accidentally dropped into one of our bags. Overall, I really enjoyed my first ever business trip experience, and was glad to have the opportunity to sit in on a confererence being held with some of the biggest education researchers in the country. Policy really was not the main focus of the conference, so I found myself wearing my "teacher" hat moreso than my "policy fellow" hat during the retreat. It is encouraging to know that so many organizations are dedicating their efforts and time to ensure that teachers receive the best practices to ultimately lead to student success.

Thursday and Friday back at the office were pretty low-key days coming off the excitement of the retreat. John, Augustus and I didn't even show up to the office until around 11 AM on Thursday, and I quickly left at noon to attend my second to last PALI fellows brownbag lunch with my other TFA fellows. Our guest speaker for this luncheon was actually with the Indianapolis cohort, and his name was Dale Chu, and he works with the Indiana Department of Education. He gave us kind of the "state's perspective" on a lot of the federal programs that are circulating through the country right now, particularly Race to the Top and the Common Core Standards. Apparently Indiana's Department of Education had a lot of inner debate as to whether or not to adopt the Common Core since the Fordham Institute put out a report ranking Indiana's current state standards higher than the Common Core. Indiana eventually decided to the adopt the common core, which probably had to do with increasing their chances of potentially being eligible for RttT round 3 money, as well as to be included in any federal assessments that are being written for Common Core states. In the afternoon, after I headed back to the office, Augustus had me work on a project going through the finalists (aka- winners if they can find 20% matching funds) of the Innovating in Investment or I3 grants to see how many of our members were involved in winning proposals. After sorting through the 49 winners' abstracts, we concluded that 9 of our members were involved in at least 16 winning applications, meaning that our members will be involved with appx. 29% of I3 grants. This is great news for our members, since they will be receiving money to be the evaluators or primary researchers for the grants. The competition was incredibly fierce, with over 1,700 applications, and only 49 finalists. Surprisingly, I was personally connected to 3 of the winners, with Forsyth County Schools (my home school system) winning a grant to test a program to reduce drop out race; Teach For America winning one of only 4 scale up grants for a total of $50 million to expand the program; and LAUSD (my current employer) to turn around low performing schools. I am proud of all 3 of these organizations winning grants, but I must comment on Forsyth County. With all of the anti-federalist tea party sentiment swirling around the county, it surprises me that 1. the district would even apply for ARRA money, and 2. take that money if they find a match. I absolutely think they deserve and should have the money, but it should certainly make people question their arguments that the federal government has no place in local jurisdictions, because clearly the $5 Million dollars given to the Forsyth County School system will play an important role in the county's innovation.

Friday, 8/6/2010- Friday was also a fairly slow day, with me attending my very last TFA luncheon with my other fellows. The guest speaker today was also brought to us via conference call, and the speakers Sylvia Puente from the Latino Policy Forum and Maria Whelan with Action for Children, and their job was to discuss the idea of turning policy into advocacy. How can you actually rally and shape public opinion to advance your cause? Obviously they work on various Latino causes, but education is certainly one of them, even if it is not the most prominent issues in the news, because it is an issue of inequality in the Latino community. After the call, I returned to the office, and helped Augustus work on pieces for the Knowledgeable Source. I helped to summarize stories on the i3 winners, Common Core Adoption, and a new Databank debuting on the Dept. of Ed. website. All in all it was a good week, but I can start to feel the wrap up of this experience. Next week, I will be left to work on projects alone as all of my bosses and Jason will be out of the office.