In 2008 Mayor Villaraigosa created a
partnership between 22 impoverished and failing schools in LAUSD and the City
of Los Angeles. This partnership, called
The Partnership for LA Schools, strives to be an example for other failing
LAUSD schools on how to achieve success. It is one of the largest turnaround
projects in the nation.
The Partnership accredits its success to the
BLM. This model redesigns the traditional classroom structure of one teacher to
up to 30 students and shrinks that ratio to 16:1 or better. It accomplishes
such low ratios by incorporating computer lessons into the curriculum. The
students spend a portion of class time working on individualized lessons online
and a portion of their time face to face with a teacher. The Partnership’s BLM
focuses its students on STEM (Science, technology, engineering and Math)
education.
Each individual school in The Partnership
has management and budgetary independence as granted by the agreement with the
LAUSD. Its action plan to fix the failing schools is to address instructional, cultural
and policy issues like teacher effectiveness, targeted student intervention and
family and community engagement.
Providing hardware and software for its
16,000 students is not a cheap task. The partnership has received $200,000 fromDirecTV to fund their new online math programs and incentive program. As a part of this incentive program teachers
and parents may also earn rewards if their student performs well. Students that
perform well may earn iPad Minis and DirecTV service for a year.
Other schools in LA and state wide are also
starting to implement more technology into their classroom routine especially after
the state gave out $212 million in technology vouchers to LA public schools in
2004. The funds stem from the unclaimed portion of an $1.1 billion antitrust
settlement with Microsoft. The state allocated more funds to schools that
served more impoverished neighborhoods. The downside to these vouchers is
school must pay for the technology first with their own funds and then apply
for reimbursements. Many schools may not have the money upfront to purchase the
hardware and software necessary to create their own BLM.
The time to use the vouchers is running
out. One set expires in April and the rest in September. $66 million remained unused including more
than $10 million for LAUSD. Unfortunately schools that do not have the money
upfront may never be able to redeem their vouchers. They may not be able to
implement a BLM for a while yet.
One elementary charter school that has been
able to implement the BLM is KIPP’s Empower Academy. Similarly to how The
Partnership schools run their BLM this school rotates students between face to
face instruction and time on the computers right there in their classroom. Depending on the subject the class may be
split in half between a teacher and the computers or between two teachers and
the computers. This allows the teachers
to keep a steady 14:1 student to teacher ratio.
KEA is unique in that each child receives individualized
instruction on the computer. If they are doing well they can continue at a fast
pace but if they are not understanding the material the program continues with
the same material. Their system is also helpful in that it collects and reports
data to teachers about what specific concepts a student is struggling with. This
is beneficial to the student because in a large class setting a teacher may not
be able to pick up on a student’s weakness right away.
Another school that has taken on the BLM is Alliance Tennenbaum Family Technology High School with success is. This school is part of a charter management organization called Alliance College Ready Public Schools. Their system is unique in that they have added a third component to their rotation. Not only do students work face to face with a teacher and spend time with the computer but they also are able spend a portion of their class time working with their peers.
Some, like managing editor at Education
Sector Susan Headdean, consider schools that implement the BLM as risk takers
because the effectiveness of the BLM has little research behind it. She also
says that, “For technology to make a difference in student learning, it must be
integral to instruction, and it must come with humans attached.”
In 2010 one research review found that
students that completed part or all of their classes online did better on
average than their peers who did not. However the review proposed that a mix of
face to face and online instruction was better than either one alone.
