Notes from the Blogger’s Summit (aka Maureen’s Rockin’ D.C. Adventure)

At last, I am back from last week’s Ed in ’08 Blogger’s Summit. Though the conference could have spanned several days to sufficiently cover the ed issues related to the election, the Ed in ’08 people did an admirable job packing content and views related to three (as I saw it) key issues: teacher prep and compensation, time and learning and the role of blogs in the election. Oh yeah, and Newt Gingrich—he made an appearance too.

Teacher Prep and Compensation

Now, when I said teacher prep and compensation, I really meant testing out panelists’ and the audience’s views on performance pay for teachers. One of my favorite ed-bloggers Alexander Russo (from This Week in Education) didn’t let any panelist off the hook in regards to their views on performance pay—even American Federation of Teachers Dir. John Mitchell, who surprising noted that AFT doesn’t oppose performance pay, but leaves it up to local districts and members. Interesting, indeed. He was, however, surrounded by a refreshingly pro-performance pay crew.

Time and Learning

The issue of adequate time in the school day/year is one of Ed in ‘08’s main campaign platforms, so Chris Gabrieli from the National Center on Time and Learning naturally made an appearance at the conference. Gabrieli—and his book—Time to Learn makes a good case that the school day/year should be expanded to raise performance and keep up with increasing global competition, but he’s certainly got a long road ahead of him in terms of national acceptance. I’m not against experiments in lengthening the school day, but when he referenced schools that start class at 7:30 am and end at 5 p.m. I certainly felt a tired yawn coming on.

So what about blogs?

At the end of the day, I was a bit dismayed by the continuing of the (now) age-old conversation as to whether or not bloggers were journalists, the credibility of bloggers, etc. This conversation doesn’t explore the real role blogs could play in education reform and distracts from the potential grassroots movement blogging could usher in the coming election. Thankfully, there were some good tips on how teachers could successfully blog from “inside the system” from New York Times blogger William Okun and The Daily Kos’ TeacherKen. Both are courageous individuals whose trial and error in the trenches benefits us all.

And last but not least, I got interviewed by the Ed in ’08 staff and the video is below. Definitely awkward seeing yourself on video. What’s up with my eyes? Oh, never mind.