History seems likely to repeat in US...

The U.S. Department of Education administered a history exam called the "National Assessment of Educational Progress", aka the Nation's Report Card, to a representative sample of public and private schools, testing 7,000 fourth-graders, 11,800 eighth-graders and 12,400 high-school seniors. The test results were then broken into "below basic," "basic," "proficient" and "advanced."

Only 20% of U.S. fourth-graders, 17% of eighth-graders 12% of 12th-graders who took the 2010 history exam were "proficient" or "advanced," unchanged since the test was last administered in 2006. Given that USA is a democratic society, it's critical that we prepare our children to vote from an informed perspective.

For more info see http://nationsreportcard.gov/ushistory_2010/

Great conference: Education Innovation Summit

My mind is still reeling from the presentations at this week's Education Innovation Summit at ASU's SkySong facility. The crowd was a healthy mix of VCs, Edupreneurs, industry players like Pearson, local practitioners, industry luminaries such as Joel Klein, Ron Huberman, and Adrian Fenty.

A common theme I heard was that politicians in US are afraid to make such changes because they fear the environment here isn't ready for such reforms, and if they propose changes, the public will react negatively, and they won't get reelected. So, the political environment needs to be more open to change.

While we keep hearing about budget cutbacks in US, we should note that the US still spends more per student than any other country in the world. So perhaps the Republicans aren't simply against education. The US has been increasing budgets and shrinking class sizes over the last decade, but these aspects alone have not affected student outcomes. That means we need to look beyond these factors.

ASU's president Michael Crow explained that times have changed and education needs to change. Under his mangement, ASU has improved student outcomes, increase enrollment numbers, graduate rates, and research projects despite a 60% drop in public funding. You can't do this by sticking with traditional models. Of course higher education isn't tightly controlled like K-12.

Joel Klein explained that we should not be surprised that a monopoly government institution with a unionized workforce resists change as this is what our current education system really is. However, we have to do something with urgency to prevent the "American dream from becoming the American memory". Here are Mr. Klein's top five ways to reform our system:

1. Move towards data-driven system. With data we can see what's working and what's not. Right now we don't have such details.
2. Move from textbook to digital. If history is any indication, this has greatly improved other industries.
3. Shift away from traditional school classroom model towards new models.
4. Embrace customized/individualized approaches to student education.
5. Rethink human capital. Are we mandating that teachers do bureaucratic tasks? How could they better spend their time?
   

These points resonated with with others said. Ron Huberman, a humble public servant that ran Chicago Public Schools with a $5 Billion annual budget expressed he could have done a much better job with $4 Billion if the system was free of the bureaucracy that holds in back. In the US, 90% of school board members are directly aligned with teachers unions. Can you say conflict-of-interest? But the problem is not union's alone. Ineffective management by superintendents and others are equally to blame.

Carlos Watson, journalist turned investment banker, compared Education's struggle to move beyond "incrementalism" with Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail commentary that "superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes."

As an edupreneur, it was great to attend some business sessions and be reminded of key points like maintaining focus, partnering wisely, remaining student-driven and to make sure we're solving real problems.

DFMv3 is live!

After 3 years of research and development, Dr. Flowers Test Prep and Logical Steps have launched the next iteration of our test prep platform helping students prepare for the MCAT online - DrFlowersMCAT.com

A big thanks for all of those that worked with us - advisers, students, teachers, parents, consultants, designers, programmers & project managers. Geeze, Lynn, wherever you are, thanks! ASU and SkySong, thanks for being the conduit for much of our premed research.

In this release, we've moved away from a strict individualization of student curriculum and more towards a guided journey to what you need to know. We now let students select which journey they'd like to pursue from Cram Session to Physics Booster. We've reworked thousands of concepts in math, chemistry, biology, physics, verbal reasoning and writing to be compatible mobile devices. We've moved everything to the cloud. We added a massive "question pool". We built support systems and trained resources to grade essays our client's essay according to AAMC's metrics.

The research told us so much. We gave cameras to premed students to photograph and tell their stories of preparing for the MCAT. From this we learned that students have busy and varied lives, and may study anywhere and anytime. We conducted surveys of premed students that revealed weaknesses in our competition. Second hand research and monitoring of what's working in mobile, social media, web 2.0, etc provided the reality check for the underlying platform.

We also learned that there's a lot of good content online. Yet finding it and tracking what you've learned vs what is covered on the MCAT is tedious. And fitting that into a busy schedule means the value of online test prep courses now is how to make efficient use of students' time.

It was amazing studying so many educational theories and trying to fit them together to deliver an effective & coherent experience. This meant we had to iteratively rework the application dozens of times and occasionally have heated debates about which theories should be applied when, where and how. As my friend Waseem once told me, "figuring out what to execute seems to take forever; execution is the easy part."

I learned that performance on standardized exams has more to do with applied knowledge than theoretical knowledge. I feel the same applies to building an elearning system. Now, let's see how we did applying our knowledge in DFMv3.

Top Socially Networked Cities in US

Men’s Health recently ranked US cities by how socially networked they are by considering analysis from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Friendster, Reddit and Digg, and SimplyMap. Online social gurus Mashable feels the study is scientifically accurate.

Notice Denver's strong showing.

Most socially networked
1 Washington, DC A+
2 Atlanta, GA A+
3 Denver, CO A+
4 Minneapolis, MN A+
5 Seattle, WA A+
6 San Francisco, CA A
7 Orlando, FL A
8 Austin, TX A
9 Boston, MA A
10 Salt Lake City, UT A-

11 Cincinnati, OH A-
12 Raleigh, NC A-
13 Burlington, VT A-
14 Portland, OR B+
15 Madison, WI B+
16 Dallas, TX B+
17 Portland, ME B
18 Sacramento, CA B
19 Aurora, CO B
20 Boise, ID B
21 Charlotte, NC B
22 Wilmington, DE B
23 Oakland, CA B
24 St. Louis, MO B
25 Las Vegas, NV B
26 Columbus, OH B
27 San Diego, CA B
28 San Jose, CA B
29 St. Paul, MN B-
30 Plano, TX B-
31 Tampa, FL B-
32 Nashville, TN B-
33 Los Angeles, CA B-
34 Phoenix, AZ B-
35 Newark, NJ B-
36 Miami, FL B-
37 Norfolk, VA C+
38 Richmond, VA C+
39 Chicago, IL C+
40 Durham, NC C+
41 Colorado Springs, CO C+
42 Des Moines, IA C+
43 Jersey City, NJ C+
44 Indianapolis, IN C+
45 Milwaukee, WI C+
46 Fargo, ND C+
47 Columbia, SC C+
48 Houston, TX C+
49 Philadelphia, PA C+
50 Birmingham, AL C+
51 Cleveland, OH C+
52 Kansas City, MO C
53 New York, NY C
54 Greensboro, NC C
55 Reno, NV C
56 Manchester, NH C
57 Providence, RI C
58 Baltimore, MD C
59 Little Rock, AR C
60 Louisville, KY C
61 Sioux Falls, SD C-
62 Omaha, NE C-
63 Pittsburgh, PA C-
64 Baton Rouge, LA C-
65 Lexington, KY C
66 Wichita, KS C-
67 Anchorage, AK C-
68 Lincoln, NE C-
69 Cheyenne, WY D+
70 New Orleans, LA D+
71 Tucson, AZ D+
72 Buffalo, NY D+
73 Honolulu, HI D+
74 Santa Ana, CA D+
75 Charleston, WV D+
76 Oklahoma City, OK D+
77 Virginia Beach, VA D+
78 Winston-Salem, NC D+
79 Tulsa, OK D+
80 Albuquerque, NM D
81 Fort Worth, TX D
82 San Antonio, TX D
83 Jackson, MS D
84 Chesapeake, VA D
85 Jacksonville, FL D
86 Riverside, CA D
87 Memphis, TN D-
88 St. Petersburg, FL D-
89 Toledo, OH D-
90 Corpus Christi, TX D-

Least socially networked
91 Billings, MT D-
92 Fort Wayne, IN D-
93 Bridgeport, CT D-
94 Detroit, MI D-
95 Fresno, CA F
96 Bakersfield, CA F
97 Lubbock, TX F
98 Stockton, CA F
99 Laredo, TX F
100 El Paso, TX F

US Students not the best as science....

The National Center for Educational Statistics just released a report on the science knowledge of American students in grades 4, 8, and 12.



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