Developments

Developments:

• Provost Academy launched a virtual high school in CO; Provost is an early example of 2^nd gen content developed as learning objects
• A couple start-ups working around the big guys and developing high school elective content
• More evidence that charters work as outlined by James Merriman
• TX drops out of the Race; too bad, Commissioner Scott would have put up a good plan

May become a development, let’s wait and see:

• The Weingarten speech and summary of possible implications from Rotherham, Herbert, Darby.

Meanwhile:

• Heels digging in during the last two weeks before the Race to the Top deadline (eg, NY poison pill, AL charter law)
• And hearings for the $350m assessment grant program; what the Department didn’t hear is that states have self-organized into 4 camps with CCSSO and Achieve in the middle:

1. 1. Formative as summative: can’t we just use teacher assessments like the do in Europe (NE)
   2. Adaptive: why not take advantage of computer based assessment (OR)
   3. Comprehensive: let’s add performance assessment to the mix (WV)
   4. Comparable & efficient: lock in Common Core gains with a full suite of common end of course exams (FL)

Imagine:

• Importing school models and learning platforms from other countries.  I saw traffic on Swedish, Israel, and Chinese learning platforms this week.  If we don’t start investing in education innovation, we’ll soon have a trade deficit there as well.
• Some good news on edu-trade balance; Noble offering American high school diploma in Korea

And, from the Undaunted Courage department

• A Kauffman study indicates that the number of start ups appears unfazed by the recession