Personalized Learning
State charter associations can play key role
I think charter associations can/must play an important role. The best associations eliminate caps and barriers advocate for equitable funding and access to public facilities promote charter quality provide value added services I think there’s more opportunity for charter associations to provide ‘freemium’ services with fee based premium services for application support,…
Personalized Learning
Systems of Survival
A board dinner discussion about scaling educational impact reminded me of Jane Jacobs’ Systems of Survival. The Library Journal summarized it this way: Jacobs argues that modern societies utilize two distinctive moral systems–one being suited to the world of commerce, the other to the world of politics. Commercial morality…
Personalized Learning
Early hybrids show the way: the PLC story
Clay Christensen talks about innovation occuring at the margin–often the choice between something and nothing. That’s certainly true in education where we’ve seen innovation start in alternative or special education. Neil Shorthouse co-founded Communities in Schools, the most respected dropout prevention network in America. After three decades of working…
Personalized Learning
Portfolio Strategy goes mainstream: CRPE report
I think Jim Shelton and I coined the phrase “portfolio strategy” in reference to cities developing a managed choice/multiple operators educational strategy. More important than where the term came from, a bunch of us landed on this idea 7 or 8 years ago as the charter and accountability movements simultaneously…
Personalized Learning
Reflections on Excellence in Action: 2009
Gov. Bush puts on a good conference. As you can see from the text of his keynote (Wednesday’s blog) he’s on fire about the transformative power of learning technology. Michelle Rhee rocked the house with an honest assessment of performance in DC schools and her plans…
Personalized Learning
Jeb Bush was great at his national summit
Gov Bush keynoted the Excellence in Action 2009 summit. While moderating a conversation with the Governor, I had the opportunity to tell the audience that he was the best education governor of the last decade. His leadership on data,…
Personalized Learning
Go slow to go fast (why ESEA should wait)
There’s an old saying in consulting that sometimes you have to go slow to go fast; in other words, you have to build the infrastructure of support in order to create profound change. I think that applies to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The law should have…
Personalized Learning
Stop dumb stuff, start smart stuff
I’m stuck on a comment in Bill Maher’s closing commentary last week. He said something like, “In America, we can’t stop doing dumb stuff and we can’t start anything big and important.” Once a government program gets started, we can’t kill it after it has served its…
Personalized Learning
New tools bring new roles
New tools and formats will not only increase options for students, they are creating a much more diverse range of employment options for learning professionals including: · content development of lessons, units and courses · platform development of social learning platforms, recommendation engines, learning management applications ·…
Personalized Learning
Platforms for change
It's time to look at platforms that will change education, especially blended learning models that increase peer-to-peer learning and a good mix of online and tech.