Drape's Takes

Now there's no way my kid's ditching Science next week!

Well played, Mr. Science Teacher! Well played.

Can you think of any ways my son might benefit from attending school next week? What might other parents/students be thinking - especially if this teacher hasn't established other effective motives for learning in his classroom? 

After all was said and done, California triumphed as this year's leading performer, with 27.8% of its eligible schools earning gold and silver medals. (Congratulations!) Other state rankings can be scrutinized here. Note that my home state, Utah, garnered zero Gold Medals and finished in 31st place against other states.** Upon learning that Utah's top contending school ended up in 652nd place nationwide, I publicly lamented that "in Utah, we get what we pay for."

Sad.

Nevertheless, this painful competition (for some) between schools and states can be an important learning experience for all. In spite of John Hattie's claim that class size has relatively little positive impact on student achievement, I continue to believe that large class sizes bring detrimental consequences that impede the success of schools. This year's display of "Best High School" rankings beautifully illustrates this fact.

Through my Utah-centric lens, I decided to dig a little deeper through the data published by the US News report. Upon analyzing the Student:Teacher ratios advertised for most schools in the report, interesting patterns emerged. Accordingly, in the US News report:

• The top scoring 2,290 schools were ranked. These schools earned Gold and/or Silver medals.
• The mean Student:Teacher ratio for Utah's twelve ranking schools was 23.
• The mean Student:Teacher ratio of the 651 schools scoring higher than Utah's top InTech Collegiate High was 16.41.
• Of those 651 higher-ranked schools, only 17 had Student:Teacher ratios higher than Utah's mean of 23.

Do an additional seven students per teacher really make that much difference? Ask any core teacher to give you their take. Ask me, and I'll tell you it's clearly time for Utah to spend more on education. Our high schools (still) need smaller class sizes! Obviously there's more to improving student achievement than meeting ideal staffing ratios; but when it comes to competitively preparing students for college on a national scale, it appears to be an indirect requirement.***

To me, if second place is no place, then six hundred fifty-second is just that much worse.

---

If you're working a school/district twitter acct & rarely or never reply or engage in conversation u don't really get the "social"part of SM
— Dean Shareski (@shareski) April 24, 2013

@ the world - My 2 main points. 1) You shouldn't decide how others should use Twitter,etc. 2) Time/resources are an issue
— Karl Fisch (@karlfisch) April 24, 2013

@ the world 1) districts who broadcast only are wasting a chance to engage 2) if you can't engage you might be better off staying out of it
— Dean Shareski (@shareski) April 24, 2013

@karlfisch I expect people to engage on Twitter. Especially vendors. I think many see schools the same way. @shareski @chrislehmann
— Darren E. Draper (@ddraper) April 24, 2013

@chrislehmann @karlfisch @shareski Isn't poor PR why we have so few resources?
— Darren E. Draper (@ddraper) April 24, 2013

@chrislehmann I saw that. Sad stuff. :( @karlfisch @technolibrary @shareski
— Darren E. Draper (@ddraper) April 24, 2013

But is their perceived success really Sounds too good to be true?!

From the perspective of a public educator, here's why I struggle with the concept:

1. There are thousands of quality resources available on Teachers pay Teachers. We need more easy ways for teachers to share.
2. Most teachers aren't paid what they're worth.
3. Most teachers can't really raise a family on the salary they're given.
4. Most teachers signed up for the job knowing both 1 and 2.
5. Public school teachers are paid by the taxpayers - with public funds - to work during specific hours of the day.
6. In many cases, the computer and other equipment used by public school teachers were all likely purchased by the taxpayers, using public funds.
7. It is my belief that classroom activities, assessments, games, handouts, outlines, posters, printables, research, worksheets, and the like - that have been created by a public educator during work time or with school-owned equipment - belong to the public and should therefore be licensed with an appropriate, open license. Resources created with public funds should neither be bought nor sold by teachers because they were never the teacher's to sell in the first place. Because these resources were created with public funds, they belong to the public.

IF the small business owners of Teachers pay Teachers really do aspire to the highest standards of professional ethics, THEN they would refuse to allow the sale of any publicly owned resource.

Right?

---

Update:

First, I appreciate the passion in the comments! Please rest assured that I know teachers work very hard. I also know that most of the resources sold on TpT were created on personal time. Like you, I've been no stranger to long work days (and nights!) throughout my career as a Teacher, Teacher Specialist, and Administrator.

At Jen and Sheri's request, I've done a little digging into the Administrative Code for my state (below, emphasis mine). The rules in your state may differ.

Utah Administrative Code R277-111-3. Educators Sharing Materials.

A. Utah educators may share materials for noncommercial use that educators have developed primarily for use in their own classes, courses or assignments.

B. Utah educators may only share materials that they developed personally and may not unilaterally share materials that were purchased or developed by or on behalf of their public employer or the State.

C. Utah educators may only share materials that are consistent with R277-515 Utah Educator Professional Standards. For example, educators may not share materials that advocate illegal activities or that are inconsistent with their legal and role model responsibilities as public employees and licensed educators.

D. Utah educators may share materials under a Creative Commons License and shall be personally responsible for understanding and satisfying the requirements of a Creative Commons License.

E. The presumption of this rule is that materials may be shared. The presumption is that Utah educators need not seek permission from their employers to share personally-developed materials. However public school employers may provide notice to employees that materials developed with public school funds or during public school employment must be reviewed by the employer prior to sharing or distribution.

F. Public educators may not sell teacher curriculum materials developed in whole or in part with public education funds or developed within the employee's scope of employment to Utah educators.

At this time, I haven't yet found law specifying ownership of resources created with public funds. However, in the original post above I've given number seven as my opinion and nothing more. For me, it stands to reason that if something is produced using public funds, then that something should probably belong to the public.

To clarify, it has never been my intent to accuse TpT of any wrong-doing. Instead, I've pointed out an obvious dilemma. First, there are many quality resources on TpT. Second, teachers work hard and deserve to be paid more. Third, it may be easy for teachers to create resources on publicly-funded time and equipment - and then sell these resources to others in need. Fourth, if resources have been created on public time and equipment, then we probably have no right to turn around and sell them.

For the record:

• I appreciate Teach 4th's honesty, and suspect that most TpT users fall into the same category.
• I also appreciate Angela Watson's direct answer to my question. That said, how do we really know that the vast majority of sold resources are legit? How possible is it for TpT to even provide a system that guarantees that only privately-created resources are sold? Seems impossible to me, beyond a stern warning in their Terms of Service. (You all read those when you created your accounts, right?)
• I absolutely LOVE how Eric Johnson has answered my final question while also offering a true-to-form critique of my writing. I honestly never meant to let him down!
• Finally, extra credit goes to Jen for providing the most rational and constructive comment yet! We would all do well to think of this entire dilemma in terms of opportunities.

I'm having a difficult time expressing with words how much I appreciate Jen, Bill, and Jethro's willingness to rationally think through this issue with me! In my imperfection, I have attempted to shed light on a complex issue, while certainly fumbling along the way.

Perhaps unlike many in the comment thread below, nevertheless, I continue to see this post as a learning experience - not a once-written-remains-written article. Throughout my blogging career, I've always tried to approach the platform in that manner.

As a result, with this update I've made slight alterations to the original post. Additions to the post have been colored pink.

• Like Bill suggested yesterday, I no longer see the struggles I have with TpT to be dilemmas of openness. Although TpT may claim to support an "open marketplace," the implications of marketplace alone emphasize drastic differences in the philosophies of TpT and OER.
• That said, I included OER in the title and openness as a basis for my post because - as I mentioned in the comments below - I wish we could figure out mechanisms of motivation that might make OER sharing as successful as the sharing that takes place on TpT. To that end, I probably like the recommendations made by Bill the most (emphasis mine):

Creating and using open content approaches the same problem - how do I get the best possible material to my class - from a different place. Teachers can use open content exactly as they would use a textbook, or a piece of content purchased from TpT; for many people, that is where their understanding of open content ends. However, that vision of open content is incomplete, and rooted in our habits of using material with restrictive licensing.

There are different levels of using open content; teaching lessons that use open content is the starting point. Remixing material that incorporates two or more openly licensed sources is a next step. Releasing that remixed version is the next step. Collaborating with other people to edit and remix content is an additional level of involvement.

And, if you look at the trajectory of using open content, it resembles the trajectory of learning. It's not a transaction (go here, buy this) - it's a series of interactions of increasing complexity, each of which requires judgment and expertise. Over time, building and using open content develops a professional network and a collection of domain level experts to work with. Working with people to create open content is some of the best ongoing professional development out there, and districts would be wise to embrace and support this reality. Rather than make absurd claims over ownership of teacher IP, they could divert some professional development money into supporting teacher time in a facilitated authoring process that spanned the course of a year. The resulting material could be released under a Creative Commons license, ensuring that teachers and the district were given the appropriate credit for their role in creating and funding the work, and material created with public money would remain available for public use.

• At this point, I will be moderating all comments. Only comments that constructively add to the discussion of sharing resources created with public funds/time will be considered. At this point, I'm beyond acknowledging the less-than-civil commentary left by overworked/underpaid TpT sellers who are - for whatever reason - offended by what has been written.

My take:

When David organized what was once called the first "proto-MOOC" at USU back in 2007, I remember thinking how cool it would be to participate in a course with fellow students from around the world.* I did not enroll, but chose instead to follow David's lead. Therefore, because I too wanted to test the boundaries of what might be accomplished using modern networking technologies, Robin Ellis and I offered to provide an after-school professional development course on Social Software in the Classroom to every interested person on the planet.

While I can't speak for David, my purpose in designing a pre-MOOC open online course was not to undermine the missions of any elite colleges or universities. Harvard and Stanford never crossed my mind.

Rather, I wanted to experience the cultural thrill of exposing my teachers to the attitudes and patterns of thought possessed by educators from around the world. I wanted to see if the Internet could really be used to build a productive community of practice. I wanted to see if it was actually possible to create an immersive learning environment that didn't require physical presence. And ultimately, I really wanted to do it for free: that is, free access to participants using free publishing/delivery tools, freely accesible to all. When all was said and done, we learned that nothing in life is truly free, just like we're also learning today that the same might be said of "open." (Is nothing in life truly open, or is everything really some shade of open? The jury's still out on that one.)

To be clear, Stephen's assertion of a great MOOC re-branding smacks of Edupunk (2008-2011, RIP). In spite of the first-sentence claim in the Edupunk Bible that this favorite movement died in 2011, Edupunk's rebellious redolence and distaste for all things formal can still be felt throughout online conversations today. Yes, the Edupunk spirit lives on; promulgated by Stephen and obviously flourishing among those who enjoy life in the "Schools Are Broken" fringes of society. To me, there is very little difference between the "We can do things on our own, who needs institutions?!?" attitude of an Edupunk, and the "We can do things on our own, who needs everyone else?!?" attitude of most private schools. Both attitudes are elitist, and ultimately in both sibling camps, some people win while other people lose. Perhaps in the end, it really is a dog-eat-dog world, as the fight for an educated populace continues to be trounced from nearly every possible angle.


Let the record show, nonetheless, that there were explorers in the days of pre-MOOC open online learning who simply wanted another quality method for all people to learn.

---

* Last November, Wikipedia user Kmasters0 (account no longer exists) removed the paragraph describing David's efforts from the Wikipedia article on Massive open online courses. Can you help me understand why?