Where is all this incentive money going to come from?

Contact:

George Jackson

202/745-2176

(QuEST Office)

gjackson@aft.org

Statement by Randi Weingarten,

President, American Federation of Teachers,

On CAP Reports on Teacher Compensation and Evaluation

The Center for American Progress (CAP) today released two reports, “It’s More Than Money: Making Compensation Reform Work” and “Aligned by Design: How Teacher Compensation Reform Can Support and Reinforce Other Educational Reforms.” The reports underscore the need to support and collaborate with teachers.

WASHINGTON—We are beginning to see research that echoes both common sense and the AFT’s mantra that effective and sustainable education reform must be done with teachers, not dictated to them. We wholeheartedly agree that when differentiated compensation plans and teacher evaluation systems—the subjects of these two CAP reports—are developed, teachers must be involved in them from the beginning.

“It’s More Than Money” gives sound advice to union leaders and district officials when developing and implementing differentiated pay programs, including involving teachers unions, gaining broad community support, ensuring financial and organizational sustainability, and going beyond politics for the good of students.

“Aligned by Design” calls for the alignment of teacher compensation plans with human resources, professional development, teacher evaluation systems, and other education-related factors. The report decries most existing teacher evaluation programs as ineffective, which is a position shared by the AFT.

The most effective way to develop and implement reforms and other improvements for teaching and learning is to work with teachers, not to impose changes on them, as I said yesterday to more than 2,000 educators at the AFT’s educational issues conference. I also noted that evaluation systems need major upgrades from the current—and inadequate—practice of 15-minute-per-year classroom observations. We hope policymakers start recognizing what these two reports say—that collaboration is the key ingredient to tackling the challenges that face our public schools.

Wowza - Got this off twitter from Chris Sessums

I think Don Tapscott's ideas about companies and institutions also apply to schools.

"So I think the most important question companies (<-- put schools in there) can ask themselves today is are we innovating, or are we doing exactly the opposite? Is what we are doing really an improvement?"

"So my question would be is how many of your innovations are really not innovations, how many are really unnovations."

Thank you to Chris Sessums for pointing this out.


Got this from here - there is a cool flash video to go along with it. Below is the full transcript of what he said that can be found on this page

What’s really different about the world today is the fact that we’re much more interconnected. And when we’re more interconnected, we’re more interdependent.

And so the question is, in this radically interdependent world, how do we have to behave to create real value, to create authentic value. Because until we can answer that question, we’re going to see the crisis that we’ve got today, actually intensify. What it really is a kind of a crisis in the way that our organizations behave. So what that means is, we see across industries this pattern of kind of self-defeating, or self-destructive, or value-destructive behaviour, because they don’t know how to do, how to behave any other way.

And we don’t seem to be able to overcome that pattern; and so until we can overcome that pattern, I think that the crisis that we see today, even if we bail ourselves out of it, by bailing out the banks, by bailing out the automakers, the crisis will keep on repeating itself, across industries; it will keep on going on until we answer that problem, of very very self-destructing behavior; and so they’re kind of zombies.

They know that they have to behave differently to create real value, but they don’t know how to do that, because they haven’t been organized and built in a way to do it.

It’s kind of in their very DNA, because the question is not one of strategy, not one of competition but one of institutions. And unless you realize that institutions are what you have to change, you wind up as kind of as a zombie.

Why do we see these patterns of destructive behavior going on? I think the reason is actually very simple: capitalism in the way we built it today kind of undercounts costs and overcounts benefits. Many of the costs that we’re now becoming more and more familiar with – social costs, environmental costs, human costs, the costs of unfairness – and it overcounts benefits, that’s kind of a structural flaw, the heart of the way that we built capitalism itself. And what that translates into is that we see this pattern of behavior of where I strive to make myself better off but I’m indifferent to whether you are better off. And if I can do that, then the result is very, very small amounts of real value that are being created, and today we’re facing that fact.

The way that we should think about it in the 21st century is that we create the world through out action and through our behavior.

So the world is kind of a function of what we do. And when we act in one way, we create one kind of industry, one kind of environment, one kind of world; and when we act in another way, we can create a very different kind of environment, or industry, or world. And so I think the question of “how do we respond to the world”, we have to think about the fact that we are responsible for the actions that we take, because those actions then go on to create the kind of world that then comes back to effect us. And so the challenge in the 21st century is learning to create authentic value, real value.

So my question would be is how many of your innovations are really not innovations, how many are really unnovations.

So I think the most important question companies can ask themselves today is are we innovating, or are we doing exactly the opposite? Is what we are doing really an improvement?

Debate Topic: Bricks and Mortar Schools are Detrimental to the Future of Education

Gary Stager @ NECC09 Debate - became my HERO

Gary actually comes on at 42mins. 45secs. time marker during the 1hour and 16 min video, you may want to let it load and just listen to what he says... unless you want to see this.... it made a big stink!

Dr. Gary Stager - Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University & Executive Director of teh Constructivist Consortium

Debate Moderator - Robert Siegel, Senior Host National Public Radio’s, “All Things Considered” (***note, really fun to put a face to this voice)

Here are my favorite pull out quotes and at the bottom is the entire debate on video.

Blindly using tech to support NCLB and other medieval educational practices

...Depriving children of the richest possible educational experiences when we know better, shows the bricks and mortar of our souls...

We need to define what physical schools are good for...

Unfortunately the very things that make physical school viable in the future are the first things to be stripped today from the curriculum.

Knowing the child well enough to build upon their interests, passions, strengths and desires..

Don’t tell me that socialization will be jeopardized if children lean on line when the number one infraction in schools is, well... talking

Don’t tell me about your online field trip to Belarus if your students no longer visiting the firehouse.

and yet I never imagined that 19 years later we would be faceting giant pre- Gutenberg technology to classroom walls.

It Seems to me that interactive white boards require brick and mortar while reinforcing the dominance to the front of the room

Without dramatically higher expectations and the creation of more productive context for learning there will be no difference between brick and mortar schools and whatever the future holds, that will be a shame for our children because they will be the losers.

Skeleton In The Closet Of Project Based Leaning

Picture by About Nice kind of weird


Project based leaning takes a lot of time. For every project teachers work very hard to include rigor and connect the project to a real world learning experiences. By the time they plan the project explain the project and get all thirty kids in the classroom on task, time is up. Yes the kids come back the next day and continue their work but in a given school year they have to move on at some point. The fact about real project based learning is that it does not end with a test, and teachers are setting students up for failure. This is the skeleton I am referring to. The very reason we give them the project is to promote self learning and when you learn by yourself you usually make mistakes until you have a deeper understanding of what it is you are trying to achieve.

There are not a lot of discussions among teachers about failure but isn’t this the point of trying something new? You learn from your mistakes and you are certainly not going to be successful the very first time. Of course this does not hold true with each standard and concept and there are those students who are the exception because they have super brains. (side note... at Educon last year Diana Laufenberg did present a session called Fear of Failure)

Ever tile anything and then wish you could rip it out and do it over? This is because by the time you finish what you began you start to master tiling and learn from your mistakes. I think project based learning should rip up the tile and destroy the first try. Then redesign the the tile project, and the teacher/guide angles the second go around toward the most important standards and benchmarks the students need to leave that unit knowing. There is also a need for careful regard to the organic learning that can occur during these attempts.

You may argue there is not enough time in the school day or year to accomplish those types of projects. I did at a lunch with David Jakes. But for David, time wasn’t the problem: you can carefully plan and scaffold this learning though the four years the students are in that particular school. After David Jakes brought this to my attention I have to admit I agreed with him. Educators can do this. I am thinking this is what would be a part of pedagogical reform.

News 21 Project - Young and the Wireless

There are two students working on a project about Teens and Technology. They located SLA by reading Matt Kay's blog in the New York Times. Matt Kay is the English teacher at SLA. The two students called Matt and Matt said if they come by some one will hook them up. Below is a list of schools working on parts of the same project...

• Arizona State: The Latino Experience Across America
• California-Berkeley: Urban Reporting, Demographics and the American Tapestry
• Columbia: U.S. Charter Schools -- Exploring Cultural, Linguistic and Immigrant Challenges
• Maryland: The U.S. Political Landscape -- Racial Identity and Attitudes
• North Carolina: Changing America -- Population and Energy Use
• Northwestern: Urban Youth and the New America
• Southern California: Southwestern Shifts -- New Communities and New Realities
• Syracuse: Teens and Technology

The above schools are collaborating on a News 21 Project 2009. There are two kids from Syacuse working with SLA, their names are Sabina Kuriakose and Adeniyi Amadou. As I understand it, all the schools are collaborationg to create a new form of storytelling though multi-media. I gave them David Jakes' website, I hope they are not disappointed that this is alreading being done by elementary and high school students.

Sabina Kuriakose is a senior at Syracuse University, dual majoring in broadcast journalism and international relations. As a member of the inaugural '08-'09 ABC News On Campus Syracuse bureau, she covered the Binghamton shootings and Buffalo plane crash.She interned with the National Emmy award-winning investigative unit at NBC10 in Philadelphia. She was also a reporting intern at WBNG in Binghamton, N.Y. last spring. Sabina has reported for CONNECT, a local public affairs program produced out of Syracuse University. She is interested in reporting for multimedia platforms. Kuriakose grew up in Bensalem, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia.









Adeniyi Amadou was born in Benin, raised in Paris and educated at a Virginian boarding school. His college studies started at the U.S. Academy at West Point and he earned his bachelor’s degree at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Amadou’s interest in journalism developed during his undergraduate studies.

This is the link that to the blog Adeniyi has been keeping while doing the research with Sabina. Here is the link to Project 21 the initiative on the future of journalism.

As always with SLA there is a twist to the story. Technology is like air here so there is not much of a story about kids and technology. SLA also practices a hierarchy of caring for students, teaching our disapline, using technology. This is the story that Adeniyi and Sabina are coming away with. I told them to go back to their professor to make sure this was they story they needed and they got the green light. I am excited to see how they excecute this project.

NECC 09 - Sylvia Martinez

Here is the link to Sylvia Martinez's presentation on ISTE Vision



Sylvia Martinez had a session at NECC ’09 and I wanted to summarize her main points. And put in my two cents about the points she brought up. She says most of the things I would like to say but just can’t properly synthesize. Just as a side note I have been to sessions by her before and I keep going to them because I like to be reminded of what she practices and how she employs those practices. The presentation I attended was called 30 Years Later: The Best Technology Professional Development.

For more information of Generation Yes go here.


• Maybe more isn’t the answer for teacher professional development,
“just in time” training may be an alternative.

I know “just in time” training has been practiced in my school. And one way I have managed that as a technology coordinator is to set up ways to connect with me that will facilitate this “just in time” training. I am available online as much as possible during the work day, email and IM and texts are always a way to get in contact with me and if I can’t assist the teacher, I usually can get a student or one of the other teachers to assist that teacher. The next two things she says illustrate why this contact is so important.

• If you are fixing a problem it is too late - teachers can’t wait for tech. support

• Tech support does not happen in real time... it is not cost effective. If the teacher continually goes to plan B there is no reason for plan A

• What is the wall between where teachers learn and where teachers teach?

I love this question and have no idea how to answer it. She did by saying teaches need to bring their professional development experiences back into the classroom. And to paraphrase if that can happen in the classroom via a learning community - even better.

• People learn better in a community

I can’t agree more with this, SLA is an example of this. Building that community can be the biggest challenge here, but the payoff is tenfold the work it takes to bring people, students, teachers, partners and parents together. I think one of starting points is to have a clear and direct mission statement. What I just wrote is not my original idea, I have heard Chris Lehmann say this over and over, maybe not in the context of creating a community, but I think that is one of the results of a clear and direct mission.

• Teaching students how to support technology for the teacher

Making them (students) responsible for something that really counts, gives the students ownership over what they do and it pushes their learning. We can’t afford to overlook any resource in schools.

• Where is my Personal Learning Network (PLN)? Teachers were more interested in talking to their friends online. This was after learning how to connect to other educators in a learning community. The obvious outcome was that teachers were not not taking what they learned back to the classroom. You have to bring the professional development learning back to the classroom.

I have done this myself. I have a wide PLN on all kinds of social networks. I find that I bring little of what I learn back. I think this is because I already have a scope and sequence and hate to interrupt it for fear of confusing the students. What Sylvia said made me think I have to organize what I learn in such a way that I can incorporate it in my next year lessons. This way my practice and lessons don’t get stale. The drawback (or “consequence to my best idea” - Chris Lehman) is I am never mastering a lesson or unit, instead I am always tryingnew things.

• Constructing modern knowledge, teachers put on their learning hat.
Get frustrated in professional development sessions as a teacher this way feeling what it is for your students to learn in your classroom.

• Kids are masters of technologies and they exist in your schools to help the community learn. Club of students led by a teacher

I try to practice this everyday. Luckily I have a system in my school that streamlines this type of program. We have student do learning outside the classroom in a program called “Individualized Leaning Programs” and the students can choose to work with our systems administrators to repair and learn about technology in our school. I support this by pointing students with an interest in this direction.

• Teachers can decide what they want to teach and collaborate with the student to make that lesson come to life. This means designing and planning together.

This hearkens back to what Sylvia said before about students owning their learning. This also promotes community in the building.

• When you see technology make a difference in your classroom then you believe it.

To me this means as a technology coordinator I should go into classes and assist the teacher in a lesson so that teacher can see the students learning with the tools. That way the teacher can see the process and the product of the students learning, making that teacher a believer in the practicality of these tools.

• Kids need our (teachers / coaches) life experience and we need their abilities to share learning in the classroom.

My friend and colleague Zac Chase gave me a bit of a push back on this statement because I tweeted it out “Kids need our (teachers / coaches) life experience and we need their abilities to share learning in the classroom. - @smartinez #necc09” And Zac Chase tweeted back “Push back: I think we have that ability. And I think we have to be careful not to discount their life experience.” So I tweeted, “I think student life experience is a part of shared learning environment” and he tweeted back “Life experience is, in general. I'd challenge the idea that a set group has a set contribution.” What I leaned from Sylvia and Zac was to be mindful of the students life experiences when planning and collaborating.

• Planning vs. organic learning? Empowering student voice.

This one is a tough one for me, I tend to teach as I was taught, not a big surprise.So if we get side tracked or off topic it is a reach for me to let the lesson merge one direction or another. Granted I have the luxury of being an electives teacher so it is easier for me to get off topic and not have major ramifications to what the student have to learn. I can only imagine with all the pressure teachers of major courses have to stay on task. Or the ones that have a core curriculum and can not make decisions on their daily in class lessons, books or projects.

• Ask yourself (school & district staff members) If you are asking a teacher to do something, is there a possibility a student can take on this task, thereby lessening the burden on the teacher?

When I hear of new initiatives or task teacher or myself have to incorporate to my day I wish there was a list posted of what the daily tasks are for teachers. In this age of transparency I think it would be interesting. Also, it can be used as a guide to influence what initiatives are important and how to prioritize them in a teacher’s day.

• Trivial bells and whistles get boring quickly - real engagement is the key
I have always been a believer in this idea.

I want to teach a course to teachers based on Jonassen's Mindtools Thinking Model
Definition: Mindtools are computer applications that require students to think in meaningful ways in order to use the application to represent what they know. (p.
3, Computers in the Classroom - Mindtools for Critical Thinking, by David H. Jonassen, 1996) It is so important to learn how to use the tools we have at our disposal to make students think about their learning instead of drill and kill. These type of application to the tools can also be used as a babysitter and this becomes dangerous. Even thought the best way to learn the test is to teach the test. I am a fan of teaching students how to think instead of how to take a test. I think this will benefit them in the long run. I would be most proud of my teaching ability if I were able to pass on the joy for learning instead of the ability to ”play school”.

Tired Choir

The slide above Tim says "Consequences" (I love this picture)


Tim Best and I presented a session at the National Educators Computer Conference (NECC) this past week called the Tired Choir. Our basic write up read like this... "Expand 21st-century teaching practices by identifying key entry points and developing a plan to augment these practices in your schools".

The tired choir is referring to all the folks who show up to these conferences being the same people. We all seem to be talking to each other over and over again. Not that it is a bad thing to be trading ideas with colleagues/friends/peers. Zac, Tim and I have found going to other conferences and speaking to educators, the same questions keep coming to the forefront. We thought there was a need for this type of session, so we submitted our pitch. *Note... Zac Chase was to join us for this session. He was flying to Africa as we were giving this session with Teachers Without Boarders. Congratulations Zac!

Our intent was to give educators, no matter what their position may be in a educational setting, an action plan. Thereby, being able to go back to their individual settings and start whatever initiative is important to them.

You too can go to our wiki to fill out a form with your ideas. The spreadsheet is also published and there is a link on the wiki to see ideas by other educators. Their contact information is there along with mine and Tim’s. I encourage you to get in contact with those who are like minded.





Huge SHOUT OUT to our ISTE volunteer !

This is Gail

Thank you Gail

Also IT and Barbara were a great help to Tim and I.

Thank you EVERYONE for making us comfortable and being such friendly and superb help.

All I have are questions....

"...the results did allow federal officials to conclude that in music and art, white and Asian students scored higher, on average, than African-American and Hispanic students, girls outscored boys, and private schools outperformed public ones."

Taken from this <--- article sent to me by Diana Laufenberg (my colleague & friend)

Do they really need to take a survey to figure this out? (snark ahead) Oh wow... the brown kids are under served even in the arts! ARGHHH! When is anybody going to do something about the educational inequity in the country INSTEAD OF JUST TALKING ABOUT IT AND REPORTING IT?! (ok, not snark but RANT)

It reminds me of something that Lauf told me and some graduate students the other week.... "ya can't fix the plane while it is in the air." Kaboom a light bulb went off for me. I now not only think about how better to serve brown people but I am thinking what it is I can do to be a part of good change. Sustainable change. Change that does good stuff for kids. What is my part in this? Why do I feel so passionately about equal education for everyone?

I ask this too, Where is the %^@* audience for this implosion of education that is going on? Where is the audience that wants to hear about how creativity is being killed? Where is the audience that want to discuss how many generations of inner city youth that have been cheated out of a decent and equitable education?

Where are the politicians that want to face this and actually get their hands dirty, instead of cutting a ribbon? Where is the administration when a troubled kid acts out in class because s/he hasn't eaten in two or more days?

In all this hubbub who is thinking about kids? Who is making decisions about what is best for them instead of their career ?

Where is the decent wage for teachers that work to make a better day in their classroom each day. Why do "good" teachers do so much without being paid? Why is there competition amoung (some staff) staff?

Why are educators/parents so afraid of letting kids on an open network to the internet?

Am I that much of a progressive that I am having a hard time understanding the state of education right now?

A secret part of me wishes it would blow up and we could bring the plane down to fix it. The kids deserve it... the teachers deserve it, the families deserve it, our communities deserve it, but mostly our country deserves it.

"Windle - BurS" aka Hull's (my) Advisory

Recently I was asked by a colleague in the Philly School District about how I run my advisory and why, to outsiders, it looks so successful. I enjoyed writing this and wanted to share it. Please give me feedback or criticism to make this a better experience for my kids. Let me know if you have suggestions for less corny activities we can engage in as a group.

So here it is the bad and the good of the "Windle -BurS" (<-- that is the name they chose together to call our advisory, it is a combination of 3 names of students... and they all voted on that one?!)

How my advisory is successful? This is a hard question to answer, so I will list what I think works and what I think does not work.

First I will start with what I currently do and then I will tell you how I want to make my practice better.

1. Every adult in our building has the same attitude towards our advisory time. That way it is modeled by the adults that we cherish and deem that time to be most important. (I know this is not always the attitude among staffers, you can make this idea apparent to your kids, by acting in certain ways and proving to them the importance)

2. The school has 2/year meetings with parents and teachers and the student comes to these meetings as well. During this time I impress upon the parent and the student I am thier advocate in the school. Meaning no matter what should arise bad or good I will be there to make sure that child is safe and comfortable in the school building. I also let mom/dad aware that much of the child's progress inside and outside the classroom is documented, and I will communicate that when necessary.

I have been to therapists, court cases and homes of my advisees.

3. This philosophy is promoted in our school in two ways. We teach children first and sometimes a realization of a bad/good day is more important than the lesson they are going to receive in that given day. This comes from a philosophy by Nel Noddings and her book The Ethic of Care here <-- is a link to her background.

My Advisory & my actions:
I will visit kids on my prep & take them out of class for a short 2 min conversation to see where they are in their head, or help to solve a problem that they may be having Sometimes it is to tell them something good I have heard from other teachers. It is a big deal to kids that you take YOUR time to acknowledge them. They get this and acknowledge the effort you took to find them, to single them out. (this by the way is encouraged and a suggestion, as well as the idea of my principal Chris Lehmann)

I let my kids know they belong to me (I am the adult in the building that is there for them at any moment) and I am their safety net in the building for a hug or a talk or a laugh. To share stories or just to make it through the day. It is the softer side of school, the place where they get to be a kid and not a student. (also Lehmann's words)

I act like a bulldog to fight for their comfort and progress at the school. I am timely at mediating conversations between them and teachers they may be having a conflict with. I try hard not to let things fall though the cracks even if they are small matters. If I do, I tell them I have not forgotten about the issue and will address it as soon as I can.

I apologize if I feel like I did something to offend them or give them the wrong idea. I apologize if they feel like I overstepped my bounds or made them uncomfortable. I try to find what works with each child, like a stern conversation or a hug with some kind advisce to get their act togher.

They know they can come to me at anytime in the school day and I will drop everything I am doing if they are in crisis. I go as far as finding coverage for my class so I can help them then and there.

I try to help them stay organized with what is going on in school and I am very serious when it comes to school wide efforts. College is coming and we have to do some boring activities for that, so I let them know it is going to suck but we will get through it together and we will make it as fun as possible. These are the days I surprise them with candy and snacks and if they complete a mundane activity they get to pick a treat.... yes it is bribing but they really don't mind! And you get to look like the best adviser ever! :0)

Surprise them with a pizza day. Have a cereal day - they bring in their favorite cereal you bring milk, spoons and bowls. Try to have them organize food days. Maybe one loves to make a certian treat or dish, encourage them to bring it in on advisory day. Have a combined peanut butter and jelly sandwich day with another advisory, it is cheap and they LOVE it.

We close the door and they are allowed to rant and rave about any issue going on and it STAYS in that room. They like to get off their chest about the difficult teacher that day or what kid has been a real jerk. They like to talk about decisions in the school they don't agree with. Their favorite topic is fairness and how something was done to defy their idea of fairness. I let them do this and I am silent and interject only when I think they are going in they are going in a direction that will make their live harder.The key to this is that they only want to be listened to.They want an adult to take what they are saying seriously and not blow them off as having a temper tantrum. They love these days and pull their chairs up close to my desk and they totally loose track of time. It becomes a very special moment for us to bond over issues that they feel passionately about.

We also talk about good things that happen to us.

I try to share as much as I can about myself, my ups and downs, my short comings. I tell them that I love them.

I even fight for those kids who are considered troubled and disruptive to the school. I look for their good qualities. I inform teachers how to handle them in a classroom setting, some need to move constantly, some need a job, some need to be told immediately they are inappropriate and not to let it go. Some need to know they can leave the classroom at anytime with out getting into trouble, like that door is not a trap to them. I ask teachers to send these troubled kids to me before disciplinary so that they can decompress and talk about the problem and feel like they are being heard and being treated fairly. I let the teachers know about their struggles and why it is they act out the way they do in the classroom. I am not soft on on these kids, I give them hard boundaries and let them know they have to respect the boundaries and me. I ask the kids not to put me in a corner where I can't help them because it will compromise my job and my reputation with my colleagues. I try to sympathize with them and let them know they made mistakes but it doesn't change the fact I care about them and will always advocate for them to the best of my ability.


Here is what I don't like about my advisory:
I am not organized about it. I don't plan ahead to make it more of a tight knit group. Most days we sit and chat and I want this time to be more meaningful. This is partly to do with my personality. I can't stand the hokey "hippie lets get to know each other better" activities. But I also have not done the research to find activities that would achieve the same goal in not such a corny way. I feel like I let some students go for too long and we become distanced. I do this because I feel like I lack the ability to reach the child... and I am afraid to approach it in the wrong way. And I hate to admit this... I just give up. I give up because I want to be perfect and my personality is an all or nothing kind of mentality. So if I feel like I can serve them, I stop trying. (eeeek that was hard to write)

I have a hard time keeping track of their academics and this is a huge problem because the student can get themselves in such an academic downward spiral they become hopeless. And by the time I get involved there is not much I can do. This is when I feel like I really let them down and my colleague down as well as the parents.


Advisory next year:
I am planning on their final year to teach them how to manage student loans, what an interest rate is, how to balance a budget, a checking account, savings account, a credit card. Life skills... How to buy furniture, how to get a lease. What to look for in a good apartment, how much to pay for an apartment in relation to their income. Phones plans and basic niceties. How to buy a car. What loans really are and how they can get out of hand. How to have a back up skill so they can work in whatever city or town they live. I believe they should have a skill so they can bring in a decent wadge, to get to their dreams. What tools to have in their possession/abilities to solve their own problems and to help the people around them.