Last updated on 2013.03.13
I have in my hands a copy of the 2012 Interim Study Survey, a list of 20 policy topics proposed by various legislators and their committees for scrutiny and discussion over the summer. (Remember: legislators, like teachers, don't really get the summer off; they spend their long break studying and getting ready for next year. The big difference: teachers do their summer prep for free, while legislators get paid $110 a day.)
Among the proposals is Item I, serendipitously for "Imagine"... as in "Imagine Learning":
Study of education and student accountability
The owner and creator of the "Imagine Learning" program created this for student achievement and accountability by developing an environment that makes it easy and exciting for kids to "buy-in" to their education experience. The success rate is extremely high for all cultures and socio-economic backgrounds. This would be a great program to adopt in South Dakota—public, private, and reservation.
[Representative Patty Miller (R-16/McCook Lake), 2012 Interim Study Survey, Item I, sent to members of the South Dakota Legislature, 2012.03.31]
Given Rep. Miller's votes and clueless advocacy for Governor Daugaard's package of destructive education reforms, I'm not sure I'd take her word for any educational product being "great."
But Rep. Miller's language in this proposal sets off my sales pitch alert. Easy and exciting... education experience... I feel as if Miller is reading off a card handed to her by an Imagine Learning sales rep. It sounds like she's asking the Legislature to convene a committee meeting not to comprehensively study the effectiveness of a variety of teaching tools and methods but rather to sit down for a sales pitch from one private company selling one specific product. Does Rep. Miller really expect the Legislature to sign a contract with Imagine Learning to buy its specific software and mandate that all of the teachers in the state use it in their classrooms?
Even if such an action benefiting one company fell within the proper jurisdiction of the Legislature (I'm pretty sure it doesn't), on what basis does Rep. Miller pick Imagine Learning from the panoply of private players in the pedagogical market?
My research overnight is not nearly as thorough as the conscientious study our legislators would give Imagine Learning over the summer. But so far, I've learned online that this Utah-based company was founded in 2002 with a focus on computer-assisted English instruction worldwide. The company currently has a 92% renewal rate among over 2000 schools purchasing its software. It also sounds like Imagine Learning was able to get its Utah legislators to fund a statewide license for its product... after making a few campaign donations to local conservatives.
Imagine Learning has evidently made a successful sales pitch to numerous schools and legislators. The company offers lots of first-name-only testimonials. Its software pumps out plenty of music, cartoons, videos, and interactive games to keep students glued to the computer screen. But does it improve English skills?
Imagine Learning cites two studies affirming its ability to add value in the classroom, an analysis of early literacy test scores among customers/students at three elementary schools in one Illinois district and an analysis of English test scores in one California elementary school near the Mexican border. Both studies use the same methodology: add Imagine Learning English activities to some of the kids' regular classroom activities but not to others, then compare their gains in test scores. Both studies show ILE users making greater gains than non-ILE users.
That sounds great... but both studies sound more like sales pitches than solid science.
Both studies appear to have targeted the lowest achievers. The kids who need the most help have the most to gain, and their gains will look numerically more impressive than those of kids already scoring high. Imagine you have two groups of kids, one with a test average of 40, the other with a test average of 80. You pour on the teaching and raise everyone's test scores by 16 points. You can happily report that the first group increased its scores by 40%, while the second group improved by only 20%. Defining your subsets by ability clouds our view of whether the extra help you offered your low achievers really produced better-than-expected results or whether those percentages are just an artifact of your selective math.
Neither study addresses confounding factors. Neither study looks at other factors that may differentiate students within the small samples studies. Neither study mentions differences among teachers and teaching methods that may affect learning outcomes.
Neither study compares Imagine Learning to other educational interventions. Suppose x is standard classroom instruction. If our kids are struggling, we teachers understand that we have to add something to x. These two studies compare (x + 0) to (x + i). If we have extra resources to invest, we teachers want to compare (x + i) to (x + j) and (x + k). It seems obvious that some extra English practice will produce better results than no extra English practice. These studies cannot make clear whether the gains students achieved resulted uniquely from Imagine Learning's product or whether the same gains would have come from extra practice in any other form, such as an extra 15 minutes each day of standing on our heads and yodeling our vocabulary lists. (Actually, I might have to try that with my French students!)
Both studies come from local private consultants. Both studies are labeled "Independent Assessment Study." The Illinois study comes from ClearVue Research Inc. The California study comes from JointStrategy Consulting. Neither company has an online presence. Both were based in Utah at the time of the studies. Neither company has a substantial Web presence. The ClearVue research more so than the JointStrategy research is written as a sales pitch:
ClearVue Research, Inc does not hesitate, therefore, to recommend Imagine Learning English to public school administrators seeking a program designed to accelerate language and literacy skills in the early grades [ClearVue 2007].
You don't get language like that from independent scholars. We can assume these consultants were paid by Imagine Learning to write up these two meager studies. So far I can find no truly independent scholarly analysis of learning results from Imagine Learning. Nearly all of the information you'll find online is press releases and other information from folks making money off this product.
Our local school districts can apply their own expertise to determine the educational materials on which they want to spend their scarce tax dollars. They don't need legislators like Patty Miller making specific purchasing decisions for them. Legislators, you'll want to focus your summer efforts on studying the impacts of statewide policies, not sales pitches from out-of-state profiteers.
"Does Rep. Miller really expect the Legislature to sign a contract with Imagine Learning to buy its specific software and mandate that all of the teachers in the state use it in their classrooms?"
Of course she does. SDDOE bought into the Charlotte Danielson evaluation product at the statewide level.
Apparently, the only people who know anything about education have a "group" like Danielson or can put .inc after their name like Imagine Learning.
That sucking sound is your tax money being pneumatically siphoned out of your child's classroom into the pockets of rather well-to-do and politically-connected venders of "education improvement" schemes. The politicians will get their kickback, the teachers and your child will get kicked.
I would be leery of products that only come out of Utah, and why can't our administrators do their own study? (x + io)^k is the sort of thing this state should be looking for.
Cory when legislators go to city council meetings, community meetings, school board meetings, county commission meetings, rural investment meetings, development meetings, fire district meetings, NRCS sponsored meetings, etc., they don't recieve one penny of travel, per diem, or otherwise from the tax payers back pocket. Only those picked by the Executive board to serve on commissions during the off season do. Many of us travel and attend many meetings to stay informed and abreast of what the community is doing without a dime of taxpayer money sending us out away from our family. And we do so without complaining. :)
But you do get paid for those E-board meetings... and ALEC covers the costs of some of those trips to "stay informed", right? And Charlie, I have no problem with folks complaining about not getting paid for work of value performed. Everyone, including public servants like you, should get paid a fair wage for services rendered.
LK: Thanks for reminding me! I keep forgetting that Charlotte Danielson is, at some level, a salesperson, just like Ed Porthan and others, making lots of money off us taxpayers but not having to stick around and be accountable to us. Let's put Grudz's idea to work, stop the sucking sound Donald hears, and let the experts on the ground, the teachers and the administrators, decide which products and methods work best for their students.
Cory every commissioned legislative summer study is funded through the Legislative Research Council for travel and per diem if needed. There are also any number of trips legislators may be required to attend in support of their position within the legislature which the E-Board can fund but also some for personal insight and knowledge which determinations of productivity are looked at by the E-Board.
ALEC is a nationwide think tank which looks at statutes and laws all over the country which have had either negative or positive ramifications to the general public. Some call the organization a conservative think tank while others view it as a Republican based law making group. From what I have seen attending ALEC events they are against more government control of the free enterprise system while also for more individual freedoms. I would call that mentality pretty South Dakotan!
BTW ; who pays for teacher inservices? And how many does the average public teacher attend every year?
Charlie,
The teacher inservice argument is a red herring. I have never been sent anyplace for a teacher in-service. I can't speak for all or most teachers, but I dread them.
I also know that Coke, Pepsi, Kraft Foods, and others don't face boycotts if they sponsor one.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/6639/alec-dropped-by-kraft-coca-cola-pepsico-and-intuit-in-response-to-the-trayvon-martin-case/category_list
Calling ALEC a think-tank is like calling the Stasi a neighborhood watch group.
LK my point being is that any public investment in my job or Mr. CAH's is subject to public disclosure as who we work for has a say in what we do with the publics moneys. As a legislator the responsibility falls back to about 23,000 citizens and ulimately the entire State. If a private organization wants to fly me to Timbucktoo to check out a new form of CO2 compressed natural gas fired energy so be it. That is my business and hopefully something we can use here in SD when the oil starts pumping up from the Williston Basin. If Rep. Miller has an idea which merits consideration lets check it out and maybe find value and merit in studying it before we condemn it.
Honestly I'm laughing out loud reading CAH's use of "votes and clueless advocacy for Governor Daugaard’s package of destructive education reforms" in describing Rep. Miller's take on HB 1234. The bill passed with a majority of Senator's and Representative's voting for it. $15,000,000 more for teacher pay, an easier way to get rid of poor teachers, and a plan to bring more much needed college graduates into certain teaching professions.?? ((Destructive??)) C'mon Corey. Maybe there are a few teachers who are clueless..........................
Charlie, I just don't like some sales rep using Rep. Miller and our interim study process to make a sales pitch to boost its profits and send more tax dollars out of state. I would think your summer study time would be better spent talking to real scholars of education, not salespeople with a profiteering agenda.
Among its mnay flaws, HB 1234 crushes a whole bunch of local control; are you and Rep. Miller going to start picking our textbooks for us, too? Maybe making the hiring decisions for our school boards? (Uh oh: I'm hosed!)
Every schoolwide inservice activity I've attended has been held in my own district, almost always in my own building, as part of my assigned duties, no extra pay. I attended an individual training at my school's request last week in Chamberlain, paid for by some anti-tobacco grant, not local or state tax dollars (as far as I know). I have attended South Dakota's speech teaching and foreign language teaching conventions with my districts covering some of the registration and lodging costs.
But don't get distracted, Charlie: I'm not criticizing you and your efforts to gain the knowledge you need to effectively represent District 23 (although you should pay less attention to ALEC and Big Oil... and those trips are our business as well as yours). I'm simply noting that both legislators and teachers deserve full credit for the full time they put into their jobs. Legislators don't work for just two months; teachers don't work for just nine months.
And what $15 million? There is no money in HB 1234. There's also no evidence it will work... and a fair amount that it will do damage. Yup: destructive and clueless.
Look, these private companies are selling very expensive stuff, some of which may be good and some of which may be a big con. At the district level these education vendors usually have to go through a vetting process, often including curriculum committees that include teachers, who usually are the ones who have to make this stuff work in the end. The vendor may have to go through a competitve bidding process.
It's a little disconcerting that we've got a legislator serving as a pimp to bypass local control and reasonable vetting and cost containment. In fact it looks pretty crooked, just on its face. It might be wise to investigate what the relationship is between the Legislator proposing this and the company.
Just saw this tonight. I love the your analysis of the studies providing the "scientific proof" touted by Imagine Learning.
I was very interested in learning that IL had gotten a legislator to shill for them in South Dakota as well. You may be interested in knowing that Imagine Learning has ramped up their political donations, joined ALEC, gotten even more no-bid money from Utah, and gotten a legislator to propose a custom-made $30 million bid bill in Arizona as well.
http://utahedu.blogspot.com/2013/03/has-every-educational-technology.html
Thank you, Utah, for providing such solid information on Imagine's political activities. I didn't catch wind of any IL-specific proposals in this year's SD Legislative session, but I'll keep my eyes open, especially now that you point out the ALEC connection.