In favor of Humanities
In an engineering curriculum crowded with plug-n-crank, Drama was one of the few humanities courses I took in college. I don’t know how I ended up in the course, it must have fit in my schedule and looked easy. When I saw Dr. Hogan at lunch today,…
Why charters matter
Barbara O’Brien is a persuasive advocate for kids. As a young corporate executive, she recruited me to visit with Governor Romer in 1992 to convince him that Colorado kids needed charter schools. There are now 141 charters schools in Colorado thanks in large part to (now Lt. Gov)…
Firing bad teachers is costly & difficult
Here’s excerpts from an important story from what’s left of the investigative staff at the LA Times It’s remarkably difficult to fire a tenured public school teacher in California, a Times investigation has found. The path can be laborious and labyrinthine, in some cases…
Great op-ed from great edu-govs
The two most effective education governors in recent memory, Govs Jeb Bush & Jim Hunt, teamed up for a great op-ed today on the $5B innovation fund. I made some similar points recently on HuffPost.
Groups making a difference
DFER: Joe Williams and a strong board continue to push the Ds to support real accountability and real choice. CA Charter Assoc: Jeb Wallace has kicked CCSA advocacy into high gear—both CA and national. ConnCAN: we’d be in a much different place if…
2020 Forecast: Last Word (3 of 3)
“You as a pupil will be placed in the centre. Personalised education means that the school and the teachers start from and adapt themselves to your goals, your ambitions and your potentials….The fundamental principle behind our method of learning is the conviction that all pupils are…
Good news, bad news
Good news 1. It’s great news that the Utah State Board approved a pilot of computer adaptive testing. Perhaps it’s another sign of the beginning of the end of the rampant misuse of 1950’s psychometrics. 2. High performing charter schools seem to have capture the attention of…
The end of the university as we know it
Read End of the University As We Know It , a great forward looking piece on higher ed by Mark C. Taylor, the chairman of the religion department at Columbia. Here’s a couple excerpts including recommendations: GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate…
2020 Forecast: Implications
The KnowledgeWorks Future of Learning map points into the fog with the following identified implications: · Resilient School Communities: I’ll buy the need for better connections and more transparency · Amplified Educators and Learners: agreed—innovation will emerge from outside the formal…
2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning (1 of 2)
As soon as you finish reading this, go to www.FutureOfEd.org and check out the 2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning, a recently released landscape map produced by KnowledgeWorks and the Institute of the Future. My friend Chad Wick flipped his foundation from a focus on…