Personalized Learning

Why Isn’t Everybody Learning Online?

Pretty good free online K-12 learning options exist in most states, so why aren’t more students learning online?  There are more than 2 million students learning online and that’s growing by more than 30% annually, but there are five significant barriers to more rapid adoption: Babysitting: Don’t underestimate the custodial…

Personalized Learning

Edu-Innovation, an Oxymoron?

In preparation for the New Schools Summit, following are a few thoughts for a great group. Acknowledging the difficulty of penetrating the complex decentralized maze of US public education, a New Schools regular asked a dinner gathering of notable reformers last week if education innovation was an oxymoron.

Personalized Learning

Rocketship Ready to Takeoff

Rocketship Education a charter network in development in San Jose, is working hard to create the future.  It’s an early hybrid–a blend of online and onsite learning. Kids spend about a fifth of their time learning basic skills online; this allows Rocketship to run a long day/year program and…

Personalized Learning

Make Early College Available to All Students

National Journal takes up the subject of Early College High Schools today.  Here’s my entry: Call it coincidence, but in one week in 2002 I had a bus ride with Cece Cunningham, a phone call from Bard President Leon Botstein and a discussion with Utah Gov. Leavitt that…

Personalized Learning

Building a Better Teacher (the Online Version)

New York Times Magazine got the title right but the story wrong.  Doug Lemov is great and his book, Teach Like a Champ, will be a big contribution to the sector.  But we’re still trying to solve a 1990 question—how does one teacher lift the achievement level of…

Personalized Learning

What Stuck? Key EdReformer Question

What Stuck?  What faded? As an EdReformer, it’s interesting to think about the investment of time and money with a little hindsight. Seven years ago, Caprice Young chaired the LAUSD board.  She went on to run the California charter association and is now CEO of KCDL, a leading…

Personalized Learning

RttT Changed the Landscape

Race to the Top has already changed the landscape–that and Obama and Duncan’s backbone.  They’ve done what no Republican president has had the nerve to do–take on teacher effectiveness.  Their willingness to incorporate tough language in RttT resulted in 40 states developing very aggressive plans to dramatically improve teacher effectiveness.

EdTech

Common Core, Day 2

It’s the dawn of a new era.  America took a big step forward yesterday and you probably missed it.  The nation’s governors and state school chiefs released Common Core State Standards to a decidedly mixed buzz—there is something for everyone to criticize.  Before the carping, editing and adding reach a…

Personalized Learning

US over Spain, Turkey, Mexico in Edu-Squeaker

The NYTimes reports that “Among O.E.C.D. countries, only New Zealand, Spain, Turkey and Mexico now have lower high school completion rates than the U.S.,” Mr. Schleicher said. About 7 in 10 American students get a high school diploma. The…