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…
Personalized Learning
RttT has Worked & Will Work (with a little backfilling)
Ruckus over at National Journal about RttT accountability. As typical, Ravitch against everything (with Kress begging her to stand for something), Hess skeptical of everything, and clearheaded Chad Wick encouraging folks to use RttT as an opportunity to rethink the system. Here’s my quick addition: RttT is already…
Personalized Learning
More on Merit Badges
Following upon this blog from a few weeks ago, I had another interesting chat about merit badge assessment systems with Bob Hughes, New Visions for Public Schools. I sat down and Bob spread a handful of old Boy Scout books on the table and I smiled knowing exactly where…
Personalized Learning
Airplane i3 Comments
The biggest change for the most people in i3 regs released about 12 hours ago is the requirement for a full app for Development Grants (25 pages with attachments instead of the 4-5 page short form). The second most important change is a tweak to the 20% match section…