Former Gov. Perdue taking respite from politics in education

Nearly two years removed from office, former Gov. Bev Perdue is still loath to talk politics. Instead, she's joining with a lot of former elected officials to push education reform.

About 18 months ago, Perdue (a former schoolteacher and a Ph.D.-holder in education administration) launched an organization called DigiLearn, which emphasizes technology and digital education in the classroom. Former Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer, a Republican, is her vice chairman.

And just last week, Perdue joined the advisory network of Education Post, a new nonprofit run by Peter Cunningham, who served in the Department of Education in the Obama administration. Informed by the politicization of Common Core standards, that group wants to tone down the discourse around education.

Perdue's first blog post for that site calls for a national bipartisan dialogue among business and political leaders on how classrooms need to change to adapt to new technologies and the modern economy.

"This broad-based discussion would really try to define for us as a country and a people, at the level of parents and teachers and policy makers, where we are as a country," Perdue said in a brief interview this week.

She said the results of that discussion should be implemented at the state level. "I don't necessarily think ... a big national solution is the right way to go now," she said.

When asked, Perdue wouldn't say much about her feelings about the debate over education in North Carolina right now.

Clearly, teacher pay was a hot political topic this summer as the legislature hammered out a controversial salary increase. It's continued into the fall as N.C. House Speaker Thom Tillis challenges U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan for her seat in Washington.

The public rhetoric has included plenty of finger pointing on both sides about which party treated education better while in control of the General Assembly. Democrats ran the state legislature until Republican victories in 2010. Perdue was governor from 2008 until 2012, when she declined to pursue re-election.

Perdue said a "professional, well trained teacher work force" is a part of the solution. She also said that the recession that took hold of the economy just as Perdue took office meant that "there was a total inability to do what should have been done" with the state's education system.

But she wouldn't review how Republicans have done since taking over the General Assembly.

"I’m not going to cast aspersions at anyone now," she said. "I gave myself a two-year timeout. I just haven’t been involved in anyway. I've written some checks, but I haven’t been involved in any of the day-to-day rhetoric." (A quick Federal Elections Committee search shows she gave $2,500 to a Hillary Clinton PAC this year)

"We should focus on how we can work together rather than how we can tear each other down," Perdue said. "There can be this healthy discussion. For the sake of our country, we have to get beyond this rapid, mean partisanship."

Perdue promised to talk politics on the record with me after Jan. 2015. In the meantime, she's living in Chapel Hill, building a house in Raleigh and said she's in the process of joining a "national firm."

Teachers cite techbook challenges

After a recent article about the move toward digital  "techbooks,"  I heard from a couple of teachers who talked about challenges they're facing.

Sherri Garside,  a history teacher at Alexander Graham Middle,  said the social studies digital programs created by Discovery Education remain incomplete.  Sixth-graders have a full curriculum,  but whole centuries are still being developed for seventh- and eighth-graders,  she said.

"To say teachers are frustrated is an understatement!"  she said.  "What they have is great, but useless unless it is updated."

I also heard from a teacher at a high-poverty middle school,  who asked not to be named for fear his principal would take offense.  I visited Community House Middle,  a low-poverty school in the southern suburbs,  for the article.  This teacher said his students are far less likely to be able to do the techbook work from home.  They may have smartphones,  he said,  but they're not likely to have laptops or home computers that are conducive to moving among multiple items and doing online work.

Both teachers said a shortage of classroom devices poses challenges.  Unlike Mooresville Graded Schools,  which provides each student with a MacBook they can use in class and take home,  Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools relies on classroom laptops or carts of devices that can be rolled between classrooms.  The teacher at the high-poverty school said that doesn't provide enough consistent access for students to get comfortable with the digital programs.

"The more you use Discovery Education,  the better you get with it,"  he said.  "Discovery Education itself is great."

It's a digital whirl ...

The Observer recently ran one installment of the New York Times series on "Grading the Digital School," focusing on how the nearby Mooresville Graded School District has emerged as a national model for digital learning.

For those who are trying to make sense of the technology revolution, the whole series is well worth a read. The Mooresville article focused on the benefits of the widespread use of MacBooks, but the series shows just how complex the decisions facing educators and families are.

There are serious questions about whether the benefits justify the expense (see the first and second stories in the series). There are companies that stand to make huge profits doing their best to wow educators. There are schools resisting the notion that young children need digital devices, and educators worried about the tradeoffs that come with a surge in technospending.

Meanwhile, I'm working my way through "From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom,"  a collection of essays by education/technology writer Marc Prensky,  who introduced the idea that today's young people speak the native language of technology in a way that we older  "immigrants"  can never fully master.  Prensky argues that until educators drop their focus on the past,  stop fretting about short attention spans and create a radically new way to prepare young people for their future,  schools will function more like jails than like beacons of enlightenment.

"For 21st century students,"  Prensky writes,  "the classroom is a dark,  dark place,  compared to what they already know and can find out  --  and its contents provides no more useful light to them than would a tiny 10-watt flashlight on a sunny beach."

And on Tuesday, LaTarzja Henry, head of communications for CMS, gave the school board a quick tour of the changes in technology a high school senior has experienced in her 13 years of school.  Henry is  making a pitch for two multimedia specialists who can keep the district up to date on social media, webstreaming, video production and monitoring what people are saying about CMS.  (I couldn't help noticing that in CMSworld, there is apparently no daily newspaper covering education in 2012.  Wishful thinking?)

It's a fascinating time to be engaged with education,  and more than a little daunting.  Among the over-50 crowd,  I feel like I'm doing a better-than-average job of keeping up.  Unfortunately, that's a lot like being a pretty good reader for a 4-year-old.