Personalized Learning
How not to invent the future
eSchool News featured a long piece on the AEI debrief on the rocky start of Philly School of the Future Long story short: some good ideas, sloppy execution. Microsoft provided useful assistance but ran into the disastrous revolving-door leadership common in urban districts. Lesson: running a good school is…
Personalized Learning
Investing in a revolution
Conclusion to the 10 year report from New Schools Venture Fund: All of these areas – from school turnaround to new approaches to training teachers and leaders – are examples of the types of new ideas, new organizations, and new facts on the ground are so badly needed. To challenges like…
Personalized Learning
Charter caps, charter block, and Klein on pay
Great post railing on Indiana charter caps by Matthew Tully, IndyStar.com “But when it comes to public education, common sense often flunks out in favor of union contracts, turf-protecting school administrators and the rest of the entrenched education establishment. In Indiana, Statehouse Democrats from Indianapolis, backed by that…
Personalized Learning
Bill Gates: beginning of tech revolution
“Technology can pull the United States out of recession and help the world’s ailing financial markets work better, Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) Chairman Bill Gates told a high-level business summit at the company he co-founded” reports Reuters. “The drug companies will get back in high productivity mode.
Personalized Learning
In favor of training and (better) testing
At the Closing the Gap rally in Washington DC , a speaker shouted, “You train dogs not children.” He went on to attack standardized testing and the resulting, “dumbed-down teach-to-the-test curriculum.” It sounded like he was in favor of open-ended discovery learning. I’ve been thinking about his…
Personalized Learning
Partial list of favorite high schools
A friend asked me for a list of the best schools to visit. Here’s some of my favorite high schools, each with unique attributes and benefits: Great applied STEM (diverse but moderately low poverty) · High Tech High , San Diego · Denver…
Personalized Learning
Social learning: the next platform
I’ve been watching social learning (i.e., Facebook for edu) for a year. It’s a super saturated solution–a few solutions will explode and achieve widespread adoption by the end of the 09-10 school year. Check out this piece on social learning. It’s the next big wave in learning–the new platform.
Personalized Learning
'Innovation' Push Raising Questions
EdWeek ran a good summary of tensions around the innovation agenda. Full text below: School leaders are under increasing pressure to “innovate.” The word is ricocheting around Washington, emanating from the White House, the U.S. Department of Education, and numerous reports and conferences convened by those who hope…
Personalized Learning
Miami Zone suggests closing better than supporting bad schools
After taking over NYC schools in 2000, Rudy Crew set up a Chancellor’s District—an early example of differentiated management for low performing schools. Like Steve Adamowski’s work in Cincinnati, this action was an important illustration of doing whatever it takes to turnaround low performing schools. The Chancellor’s district…
Personalized Learning
School Closings, Race, and Movement Politics
(2nd report from Close the Gap: Education Equality Day) When it comes to educating our kid, we have an invention problem and an execution problem. We need to invent new tools and new schools for this new generation. In many respects, they are already living in a…