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ForewordIt is no secret that technology has transformed justabout every aspect of our lives, from how we watchmovies and listen to music to how we interact sociallyto how we buy cars and clothes. The same cannot besaid, however, for America’s K–12 school system. Whileadvances in modern technology offer an unprecedentedset of tools to reinvent the traditional classroom, inpractice each new generation of education technologyhas failed to do so.In our book Breakthrough Leadership in the DigitalAge (Corwin, 2013), Kaplan’s Bror Saxberg and I proposea smarter way to tap education technology’s capabilitiesto transform schooling. Too often leaders andeducators have used new technologies to tinker withoutdated practices rather than establish new and betterones. Instead, school leaders ought to become “learningengineers” by identifying the challenges they wantto solve, finding solutions in relevant science, and thenexploring how technologies can enhance those solutions.As Bror and I write, when used correctly, technologycan make learning more affordable, available,reliable, customizable, and data rich.To illustrate how our ideas might play out in thefield, AEI has commissioned case studies exploring howa school and a district think about technology’s role intransforming schools. In this case study, my AEI colleaguesDaniel Lautzenheiser and Taryn Hochleitnerlook closely at District of Columbia Public Schools(DCPS) forays into the digital learning world. In particular,DCPS has chosen to experiment with blendedlearning, which combines a mix of online learningand traditional teacher-led instruction. Lautzenheiserand Hochleitner are especially keen to zero in on thefolks in the DCPS central office, the teachers, and theprincipals—those on the ground who grapple with thehard work of transforming DC classrooms. In doingso, they profile both the promising opportunities ofblending learning and some of the challenges DCPSand similar urban districts face in getting it right.Lautzenheiser and Hochleitner explain, “In DCPS,rather than directing all schools to pursue the sameblended learning model, [the district has] embraced amore organic approach, encouraging such a transitionin schools they perceive to be most willing and able todo so. . . . They seem particularly interested in usingit as an improvement strategy in traditionally underperformingschools, where the administration is willingand the culture is ripe to try something new andbold.” The paper includes profiles of three ways ofusing blended learning in three different schools: stationrotation at Randle Highlands Elementary School,the novel Teach to One math program at Hart MiddleSchool, and the use of Discovery Education’s onlinetechbooks at Anacostia High School. Despite inevitablechallenges such as technical glitches, helping teachersnavigate new tools, and insufficient hardware, theauthors conclude that “the future is bright” when itcomes to blended models in the nation’s capital.We hope this case study is helpful in thinking aboutwhat it takes to implement a thoughtful blended learningstrategy in a major urban district. I hope you will alsotake a look at the other paper in this series on Philadelphia’sWorkshop School, written by Matthew Riggan,one of the school’s founders. For further information onDaniel and Taryn’s paper, they can be reached at daniel.lautzenheiser@aei.org or taryn.hochleitner@aei.org.For additional information on AEI’s education policyprogram, please visit www.aei.org/policy/education orcontact Lauren Empson at lauren.empson@aei.org.—FREDERICK M. HESSDirector of Education Policy StudiesAmerican Enterprise Instituteii
Blended Learning in DC Public Schools:How One District Is Reinventing Its ClassroomsBy Daniel K. Lautzenheiser and Taryn HochleitnerIt is a crisp, bright day in early November in SoutheastWashington, DC. The setting is Anacostia HighSchool, a 697-student Title I school in DC’s Ward 8that has long been one of the district’s most chronicallyunderperforming schools. After giving a brief introductionto Japan’s geography and major cities, the socialstudies teacher we are observing asks her ninth-gradestudents to each pull out a netbook from a cart alongone of the classroom walls and log into an online portal.The portal is robust. Students can access an array ofmultimedia tools such as videos and interactive maps farbeyond the scope of a printed textbook. They can requestto hear passages read aloud and click on bolded termsto view their definitions. Each student can log in with aunique password, allowing them to customize their portalby taking notes and highlighting, and they can takeassessments online for immediate feedback. Students canaccess their portal from anywhere, including at home,and teachers can track individual student progress.Yet, as we watch, the students log in not withunique student-specific IDs but with generic ones.It takes one student almost five minutes to correctlyenter the password required to log in to the computeritself. Despite the online assessment capabilities, theteacher asks students to answer questions on a paperworksheet, meaning she will have to review each oneby hand that night. And at one point a student hastrouble understanding a word. With the entire scopeof human knowledge just a 0.21-second Google searchDaniel Lautzenheiser is the program manager in educationpolicy studies and Taryn Hochleitner is a research associate ineducation policy studies, both at AEI.away, the student gets out of her chair, walks over to abookshelf, picks up a dictionary, and starts slowly flippingthrough the pages.That particular anachronism—a 21st-centurystudent turning to Merriam-Webster instead ofWikipedia—highlights both the massive potential andthe stark realities of digital learning in today’s classrooms.Digital learning uses new technologies such aslaptops, iPads, and online content to enhance studentlearning. Many believe such practices have the potentialto dramatically improve the learning and teachingexperience, and it seems every day heralds a new storyof school districts purchasing iPads in bulk or enthusiasticaccounts of the next revolutionary online tool.But incorporating new technologies into schoolingin a way that actually improves learning is not as simpleas dropping laptops into a classroom and hoping for thebest. It is hard work, requiring a district or school to provideample training for teachers, make smart decisionson which products to use, and be sure any new technologicaltools help (and do not hinder) academic goals,among a host of other considerations.Many highly publicized accounts of successful digitallearning efforts tend to spotlight the bold vision ofa pioneering school or district leader, leaving less roomfor a description of what central office and school staffmust do behind the scenes to make those visions a reality.Such stories also tend to focus either on charterschool networks (such as the San Jose–based RocketshipEducation) or on smaller traditional school districts(such as Mooresville Graded School Districtin North Carolina, whose one-to-one computer-to-student initiative has attracted national attention and a1
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