Posts by Guest Author

Personalized Learning

Debating Petrilli’s Post “One size fits most” for Ed Reform

By Bruno Behrend We education reformers are a fractious lot.  We like to debate each other more than we like to take on the obstacles to transforming education.  One exception to this rule is Mike Petrilli of The Fordham Foundation. He is well known for his tendency…

Personalized Learning

Digital Learning in Kentucky

KY Commissioner Terry Holliday By Terry Holliday Kentucky was one of the early leaders in virtual learning. Today, we are struggling to find the appropriate methods for funding, support and innovation. Over the past two years, we have been working first…

Personalized Learning

Responding To Tennessee State Representative Craig Fitzhugh

I couldn’t let this column by state Rep. Craig Fitzhugh (D-TN) titled, “Virtual Schools Bad for Education Reform” go by without responding. It was so full of errors I almost didn’t know where to start. I don’t know Rep. Fitzhugh, so I won’t suggest he was intentionally misleading readers. I’ll just give him the benefit of the doubt and presume that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Let me attempt to dissect it.

Personalized Learning

The Name Game

It’s silly season again, and I’m not referring to the Republican primaries. No, I’m thinking about the all-out battle for proponents and opponents of “reform” to stick a nasty label on the other side and claim the mantle of truth and goodness for themselves. This is nothing new, of course (Sean Cavanagh had a smart piece in Ed Week about this in March). But the battle continues apace.

EdTech

Feature School: Northwest Passage

We need to pursue a system of public education that endorses schools like Northwest Passage and that embraces them as part the norm, rather than perpetuate a system that holds them at arm’s length.

EdTech

Rethinking Time in Online Learning

In online learning, we often tout how one of its best attributes is flexibility. We talk about how online learning will allow students to learn at their own pace, and how we will meet them where they are. A case of this was talked about recently on CNN, an echo…

EdTech

From Drop Out to Push Out in Online Learning

We have the opportunity to avoid the replication of a broken system where the culture of “read and do” exist. We must take ownership of the walls that exist for students and seek to find ways to climb.